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The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Green New Deal, and an Unusual Night at the Orchestra
00:34:01
The Green New Deal is coming to the table during the one of the most divisive periods Washington has ever seen. Two advocates of the environmental plan—a young activist championing the cause, and a veteran of climate politics in Washington—consider what it would take to actually pass such legislation. And The New Yorker’s Patty Marx learns firsthand that conducting an orchestra can’t be mastered overnight.
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- [00:01]
Carol Browner
From one World Trade center in Manhattan. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of the New Yorker and WNYC studios.
- [00:10]
David Remnick
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Earlier this year, a group of young climate activists, children mostly, showed up at Senator Dianne Feinstein's office and they were there to talk about the Green New Deal. And suddenly things got pretty testy.
- [00:27]
John Cassidy
The government is supposed to be for.
- [00:29]
Varshini Prakash
The people and by the people and all.
- [00:31]
Carol Browner
You know what's interesting about this group is I've been doing this for 30 years.
- [00:37]
Patricia Marks
You come in here and you say.
- [00:39]
Carol Browner
It has to be my way or the highway. I don't respond to that.
- [00:44]
David Remnick
Those activists who ticked off Senator Feinstein were part of the Sunrise Movement. Apart from a membership that's very young, the Sunrise Movement sounds pretty different from the big environmental groups like the Sierra Club. Say rather than talking about the fate of polar bears or coral reefs, they tend to frame the issue in these terms. We're the ones who are going to suffer if we don't do something really fast.
- [01:11]
Eliza Griswold
Even though the idea of the Green New Deal has been around for at least a decade, it's really taken on legs because of the Sunrise Movement.
- [01:22]
David Remnick
Here's Eliza Griswold, a staff writer who's just won the Pulitzer Prize.
- [01:26]
Eliza Griswold
It was really fascinating during the midterms to get to watch what impact the young people had, particularly in Pennsylvania. That I was covering the swing state and looking at them on the ground, just the number of doors they knocked was incredibly inspiring.
- [01:44]
David Remnick
Eliza talked recently with varshini Prakash, the 25 year old co founder of the Sunrise Movement.
- [01:51]
Eliza Griswold
One of the things that I find so exciting about both Sunrise and the Green New Deal is the idea of climate justice. That finally environmental justice and the climate change movement are getting on the same page.
- [02:05]
Varshini Prakash
Well, part of how I think about this is if we look at the last few decades of climate movement activity and of climate policy, just focusing on the climate alone has not been a winning strategy. One of the reasons why I think the Green New Deal actually has a chance at building this winning coalition of lots of different diverse constituencies is that it's fundamentally about tying climate action to people's basic interests, right? Like jobs and the economy and health and healthcare. It includes a 10 year economic mobilization to transform every part of our economy and society to stop the climate crisis and get us off of fossil fuels. The second piece of it is that we ought to guarantee a job to every person who wants or needs one doing the critical work of Avoiding climate catastrophe. And so people might immediately balk at a word like decarbonization or climate change or something like that. But everyone cares about access to clean air and clean water. Everybody cares about having access to, to a good high paying job and being able to support their family.
- [03:23]
Eliza Griswold
Okay, so that's the plan on addressing communities and garnering community support. How do you plan to get such an ambitious agenda through Congress?
- [03:34]
Varshini Prakash
Yes, the path to power here or to victory. I think about this in a few different ways. First of all, of course, we need to replace Trump. We need to elect pro climate action, pro, pro good jobs majorities into the House and the Senate. At the same time, we need to be building big, robust, massive movements that include millions of people for social change to be keeping up the pressure on the outside. So I think the biggest thing that we need to ensure is that we are setting ourselves up so that two years from now, when the political conditions are ripe, we have built the political will and we have built also the public consensus, the public support, so that we can pass these policies when the window of opportunity arises. And it's going to be very similar to how FDR's New Deal occurred as well. FDR didn't get up and say, you know, we have a New deal policy that's 10,000 pages long and we're going to pass it in one fell swoop. He sort of embraced what he called bold experimentation over a decade of time where he threw dozens and dozens of policies at the wall and saw what stuck. And I think we need to embrace this experimentation as well in our politics today and do whatever it takes to really pass the policies that are gonna prevent us from going over this tipping point that we are on the verge of.
- [05:05]
Eliza Griswold
Okay, Varshini, what do you say to criticism like, how are you gonna manage decarbonization in this particular time when there is no carbon free option for, say, jet fuel? When people bear down on some of the specifics and say these are great goals, but they are impossible technologically to achieve in this time. What's your response to that?
- [05:33]
Varshini Prakash
I mean, there have been lots of people telling us that we are radical, that we are unrealistic, that we're naive, we've heard it all at this point. I don't know if we can completely decarbonize our economy in the next 10 years. I don't know if we can eliminate all warming emissions. But we have done incredible things in this nation's history before. We have an amazing track record. You know, we are facing this grave, existential threat, a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. Scientists are telling us there will be, you know, 150 million climate refugees by mid century. 150 million million. All of our coral reefs will be gone, hundreds of millions of premature deaths from pollution. We don't have a choice but to strive. And I think in striving, we can open up all sorts of political opportunities and perhaps technological opportunities than we could have ever before.
- [06:32]
Eliza Griswold
Recently, the AFL CIO came out against the Green New Deal, saying that it could cause, quote, I think, immediate harm to millions of union workers. How do you respond to that?
- [06:43]
Varshini Prakash
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a complicated issue, and I don't think it's an. It's an issue that's going to be completely solved in mere days or weeks. I do believe that the Green New Deal has the greatest chance of actually bringing both labor and enviros and businesses and more farmers and ranchers, indigenous communities to the table. Because I think it's the first time that we have articulated a vision to stop climate change that's actually rooted in a just transition, in injustice and equity, and it is also about economic revitalization. Many of these unions actually represent working families and communities of color that are already experiencing the impacts of climate change. I was talking to the head of one major union the other day who said that over 70,000 of their union workers had been affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Florence and that they had had to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to support these. So this is hurting union members right now. And a lot of people understand that. Many people are very much on the same page about the need to do something about it. And now we need to actually have communication with both, not just leaders at the top, but at the grassroots as well, to bring the majority of folks along.
- [08:02]
Eliza Griswold
Do you support primary campaigns against Democrats who don't back the Green Deal?
- [08:07]
Varshini Prakash
Yeah, we will, definitely.
- [08:10]
Eliza Griswold
So the Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe called the Green New Deal the gift that keeps on giving. How concerned are you that Republicans are going to use policies to address climate as a bludgeon against Democrats?
- [08:24]
Varshini Prakash
I'm not that concerned, frankly. We're seeing that the Green New Deal has absolutely skyrocketed into the public conversation and the nation's discourse over the last five months. What used to be a relatively niche policy priority is now becoming the number one most popular policy amongst Democratic 2020 caucus goers and majorities of Republicans, even conservative Republicans, who are very much in support of things like investments in sustainable agriculture and renewable energy, supporting energy efficiency programs, and interested in the job creation component of the Green New Deal as well. So I think, you know, Republicans will continue to use this to bash whomever, but frankly, they're the ones who end up looking pretty ludicrous in the end.
- [09:14]
Eliza Griswold
But one of the talking points for Green New Deal opponents is this. They're going to take away our hamburgers, which obviously you've heard, I'm sure. How do you deal with people who belong to an opposition that is really hostile, that isn't engaging in the debate in a substantive way? How do you begin to reach those people?
- [09:33]
Varshini Prakash
Yeah, it's an interesting question. I will say. I don't think you can reach everybody. I think the key is to make sure that some of these key individuals who sort of passively support action on climate or support these policies. Like for example, there are a lot of farmers and ranchers in the heartland and in the Midwest and places that you see this, this terrible rhetoric around, you know, we're going to kill your cows and take your hamburgers and all of that manifesting most strongly a lot of those folks are really interested in investments in sustainable agriculture and improving livelihoods for farmers and ranchers and ensuring that people have access to good food. But in large part the Democratic Party and the climate movement writ large has failed to actually go out and talk to these people on the ground. And that's like the first thing that our movement is trying to do and needs to do to win on this moving forward.
- [10:37]
David Remnick
Varshini Prakash is co founder of the Sunrise Movement and she spoke with the New Yorker's Eliza Griswold. The Green New Deal is the most ambitious climate proposal ever brought to Congress, coming to the table during one of the most divisive periods we've ever seen. No one knows better than Carol Browner how hard this legislation will be to pass. Browner is a veteran of D.C. politics, chief of the EPA under Bill Clinton and the so called climate czar under Barack Obama. And neither of those administrations, it's got to be said, was able to make any real dent in the climate crisis. Carol Browner spoke recently with the New Yorker's John Cassidy.
- [11:20]
John Cassidy
I mean, just to set this in a bit of historical context. If we perhaps just go back to the Obama administration, we did have a lot of green policies, cap and trade, fuel efficiency standards, sort of clean air regulations, which the Republicans depicted as a war on coal, et cetera. Perhaps you could just remind us what the Obama administration tried to do on the environment and how far it succeeded and how far it failed.
- [11:43]
Carol Browner
Well, I think President Obama came to office with a strong commitment to address climate change. And there were laws on the books. He didn't need Congress. He could use the existing Clean Air act, the existing transportation laws to actually set standards to make cars more fuel efficient, to set the first ever greenhouse gas standards, to set appliance efficiency standards, to regulate pollution from power plants. And so he set out to do all of that. He simultaneously went to Congress and said, let's pass a and trade bill, the Waxman Markey Bill. It did pass in the House. Unfortunately it did not pass in the Senate. But then Obama first went to Copenhagen where there was an international discussion on climate change, then goes to Paris where we secure a global deal where each country will deliver to the best of their abilities. And I think that President Obama deserves a lot of credit for sort of moving the actions along, not just saying words, but actually taking concrete steps. I think the Green New Deal takes another big step forward in terms of its aspirations, in terms of its ambitions.
- [12:48]
John Cassidy
But it seems like the Green New Deal approach is pretty different to the Obama administration. It seems to me one of the things about the Green New Deal is it's got a sort of, whether you agree with it or not, it's got a sort of conceptual framework behind it. They've got this target for the IPCC of hitting zero Z emissions by 2050. They say that in order to get there you've got to basically have a clean power grid by 2030. That's been misinterpreted in some places, saying the whole thing's gotta be done by 2030. But it's a very ambitious agenda. Does that make it different from the Obama administration? I mean, did you guys have a sort of overall target in your minds?
- [13:25]
Carol Browner
I think one of the things I learned and the administration learned from Waxman Markey is that sort of a one size fits all, economy wide approach was probably not going to get us what we needed. And that you could look at the various sectors that contribute to carbon pollution and develop programs around those sectors. And so, for example, what you do with cars might be, you know, set fuel efficiency standards, set greenhouse gas standards, drive towards new technologies, new forms of micro mobility. For example, what you do for power plants might be different. Power plants are very familiar with a cap and trade regime, so you could use that. But it's. I think what the Green New Deal is very clear about is that we need very, very bold ambitions and that there's not one solution out there.
- [14:09]
John Cassidy
I mean, there does seem to be, certainly among young voters, there does seem to be an appetite for sort of, you know, radical approaches to this and sort of feeling that the policies in the past have failed.
- [14:21]
Carol Browner
I don't know that I agree that they've failed. They haven't been. As someone who's been a party to a lot of them, what I would say is they have been less than perfect. But, you know, the way environmental regulations work is they're building blocks. So you look at the science, and you set a smog standard and you achieve reductions. You regulate industries who create smog, who emit ozone, and then you look again and again and again. Right. And you make these building blocks that get you where you want to go.
- [14:50]
John Cassidy
Right, sorry. What I meant is that they failed to sort of reverse climate change so far.
- [14:55]
Patricia Marks
That's fair.
- [14:55]
Carol Browner
That's fair.
- [14:57]
John Cassidy
What about the cost of all this? You know, that's obviously the Republicans, and I would imagine some Democrats, too, at some point are going to raise the issue of whether this is, you know, feasible. Are we going to have to raise taxes? I mean, you see various figures of sort of $10 trillion over a long time. Is that feasible politically, do you think?
- [15:16]
Carol Browner
Well, first of all, I think these numbers are hard to follow, and they're sort of based on a lot of sort of guesses, slash assumptions, I guess. I think it's important to look at history here. We have time and time again set strong environmental regulatory standards. And there have been naysayers at the time who said, oh, we'll never be able to meet that standard. But once the EPA sets that standard, once it is an enforcement standard, American innovation and ingenuity rises to the challenge, and we find a new and cheaper way to get it done. Virtually every single major regulation that has come out of the Environmental Protection Agency to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, has been met for far less money than was originally thought because we're good at finding solutions. And, you know, part of the challenge of climate change is we need to get going, we need to set these standards, and then it becomes the art of the possible. And I think we'll be good at that.
- [16:16]
John Cassidy
Right.
- [16:17]
Carol Browner
I think it's really hard to, with a huge amount of accuracy, sort of project what the impact, the economic impacts are gonna be.
- [16:24]
John Cassidy
But, I mean, before we get there, we're gonna have to. Have to build a sort of political coalition for this. And already tensions are emerging. The Republicans are already starting to sort of demagogue this and, you know, saying, democrats are gonna take away your hamburgers, et cetera.
- [16:38]
Carol Browner
I've been There they accused me. Let me see, what was it? I was gonna take away your barbecue grill. That was one of them.
- [16:44]
John Cassidy
You've got the AFL CIOs being very resistant to Green New Deals, so you're not really getting much labour buy in. And then on the environmentalist side, you're getting people in the sunrise movement saying that they'll only support primary candidates who go along with their approach. Seems to be a threat of sort of internecine conflict inside the Democratic Party on this. How are we going to build a coalition which can overcome what is at the moment a Republican Senate? The Green New Deal people would say we need a big grassroots campaign. It's the only way we're going to get 60 senators, et cetera.
- [17:15]
Carol Browner
Well, I agree. We need a big grassroots campaign, without a doubt. We also need industry. We need industry leaders to step up. They're very influential with members of Congress, with members of the Senate.
- [17:25]
John Cassidy
Is it realistic to expect the power industry, gas companies, oil companies to. You know, it sounds a bit like Turkey's voting for Christmas. Are they ever going to agree to this?
- [17:36]
Carol Browner
Well, I think there are some that have seen the future. You know, they're also getting a lot of pressure from their investors. There is a shareholder resolution filed with Exxon. It is supported by, I think, nine investors, large investment companies that represent $9 trillion in assets under management. Right. You know, if you look at the long history of environmental protection in this country, sort of pollution efforts as opposed to conservation, what you will see is people start to move forward and then Congress follows because you have to set a floor. Not ever be as much as we all hope for, but it will be a step. And then we have to argue for more.
- [18:14]
Patricia Marks
Right.
- [18:15]
John Cassidy
I mean, when you were doing cap and trade, you actually got some buy in from the energy industry, Right.
- [18:20]
Carol Browner
We did have some buy in, particularly in the House during the Waxman Markey debate.
- [18:25]
John Cassidy
Right. I mean, I think some people in the Green New Deal movement would like to just sort of say, let's just mobilize and crush the corporations here, where they're never going to agree with us. We just need. Instead of trying to do deals with them, what we need to do is mobilize the public, get mass support and just vote the legislation through. And they'll have to deal with it then.
- [18:42]
Carol Browner
Well, we need 60 votes. And so the question is, how do you put together 60 votes? And one piece of it is the grassroots and I applaud them and I encourage them to continue, but the other is, you know, working with industry Working with investors, working with all parties to get to 60 votes. You know, at the end of the day, I don't really care why you vote the way you do. I just care that you vote the right way. So I have to find an argument that appeals to you.
- [19:07]
John Cassidy
But I mean, it's still, at some point somebody's going to have to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and say, you have to do this. I mean, you've been in this game for as long as anybody, 30 years. Are you optimistic, more optimistic now than you were? How do you sort of view the current situation?
- [19:22]
Carol Browner
Well, I am optimistic in part because I just don't believe 60 something that my generation is going to give to my grandchildren a problem they can't solve. I think that one of the consequences of all of the delays to date is we can't only talk about reducing crime pollution anymore. We have to talk about adaptation, we have to talk about rehabilitation. We have to talk about the whole panoply of things that we will do. But I think that we are making progress and I give the new members of Congress a lot of credit for raising their voices.
- [19:58]
David Remnick
Carol Browner, climate advisor to Barack Obama and chief of the EPA during the Clinton administration. She spoke with John Cassidy, a staff writer at the New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and coming up we'll hear from Patricia Marks about a career change plan that can't possibly fail. Or so she thinks. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for joining us today. I'm David Remnick. And now I'm going to turn things over to Patricia Marks. Don't worry, you're in good hands.
- [20:58]
Patricia Marks
As a writer, I spend a lot of time at my computer thinking of careers I should have chosen instead. And high on my list is being the conductor of an orchestra. You know, there are some jobs and endeavors that look impossibly hard, like computer programming or landmine removal or swing dancing. But conducting, I just thought, how hard really can it be? So I think I've got what it takes. I know how to clap on time. I know the difference between loud and soft. And I have free time. Miraculously, the Orchestra of St. Luke's a very prestigious orchestra, gave me 36 musicians to play with. That's three dozen. And they let me conduct the Haydn Symphony number 45, which they were rehearsing that day because they were going to play it at Carnegie Hall.
- [22:00]
Bernard Labadie
Hi, Patti.
- [22:01]
Patricia Marks
Nice to meet you.
- [22:02]
Bernard Labadie
Likewise.
- [22:03]
Patricia Marks
I was introduced to the real conductor, Bernard Labedis from Montreal, and he is a specialist in classical and baroque music. So we're looking at this score.
- [22:20]
Bernard Labadie
Yep.
- [22:21]
Patricia Marks
There are many, many, many pages.
- [22:23]
Bernard Labadie
Yeah. And that's a small score because there are not so many instruments. If we'd be doing Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, you would be facing a huge wall of notes and lines. But in the Haydn Symphony, it's something much lighter.
- [22:37]
Patricia Marks
And there's a line for each instrument.
- [22:39]
Bernard Labadie
Exactly. And it's clearly written. So you see that the top line is oboe, too. Fagoto is bassoon.
- [22:45]
Patricia Marks
A Bassoon, Corno. 1 in a law must be a horn.
- [22:50]
Bernard Labadie
It's a horn, definitely.
- [22:52]
Patricia Marks
The second violino must be.
- [22:54]
Bernard Labadie
So there are two horns. It's important, you know. And that's. That's an important.
- [22:57]
Patricia Marks
Two oboes.
- [22:58]
Bernard Labadie
Yeah. One bassoon, two horns. But it's important to say, why do.
- [23:03]
Patricia Marks
They call it fagato?
- [23:04]
Bernard Labadie
Fagato is the. It's the Italian word for. For bassoon.
- [23:07]
Patricia Marks
Okay. They make everything sound like pasta. So are your gestures. You prepare so much. Are your gestures planned, or do you feel it in the moment?
- [23:20]
Bernard Labadie
Well. And when you learn how to conduct, you have to learn the gestures, and you have to learn the impact of gestures on musicians. And also, you learn to adapt them to the different musicians you're working with.
- [23:33]
Patricia Marks
So it's not specifically choreographed?
- [23:36]
Bernard Labadie
No, I mean, it's part. How could I say that it's not.
- [23:39]
Patricia Marks
Choreographed, Meaning that it's like you're dancing with the orchestra?
- [23:43]
Bernard Labadie
To some extent. But I'm. Maybe it would be more precise to say that I'm dancing ahead of the orchestra, because my job is to convey through my gestures how I want the music to sound like. We are usually one beat ahead.
- [23:59]
Patricia Marks
How can I tell as an audience member? How can I separate a good from a great conductor?
- [24:04]
Bernard Labadie
The truth is in the music that you hear. What I mean is, you cannot really trust what you see. Because sometimes some conductors have a very, you know, weird conducting technique, and it seems. It seems offensive or anything, but the results are fabulous.
- [24:22]
Patricia Marks
I thought what Bernard said was very reassuring if I interpreted this right. He said, it really doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do it extremely, even if it's offensive. So I brought my own baton, which I had gotten for $8 on Amazon. I could have splurged for more, but I thought, how good does a baton have to be? Though? I also thought, why don't they give me two? I don't know why. I guess I was thinking of chopsticks or something.
- [24:53]
Bernard Labadie
You don't need to use A baton to conduct. It's not an absolute necessity. It can help, and I would say it helps, especially if you have a very large orchestra, if you're in the pit and people have a harder time seeing you. What. What it does is that it focuses the message. It concentrates the message of the hand into one point, which is easier to read. But it's a matter of choice, I.
- [25:16]
Patricia Marks
Would say, well, I like toys, so I'm going to use.
- [25:18]
Bernard Labadie
It's a big toy.
- [25:20]
Patricia Marks
Yeah. Fencing without a sword or being a jockey without a whip.
- [25:26]
Bernard Labadie
Yeah. But be careful. It can be dangerous. I'm well known in Quebec City for having stuck one of these up my nose in rehearsal and ending up in emergency room in the hospital.
- [25:44]
Patricia Marks
So I'm walk up to the podium, and not only am I holding a deadly weapon, but I look out at the orchestra and I think, shit, I can't do this. It's terrifying. Maybe sticking the baton up my nose isn't such a bad idea, because surely that would be an easier route to go than trying to conduct 36 musicians. But there was kind of no turning back.
- [26:20]
Bernard Labadie
So the tricky thing, of course, is to make you start together.
- [26:26]
Patricia Marks
Here goes. What? What's wrong?
- [26:33]
Varshini Prakash
What they do.
- [26:37]
Bernard Labadie
So one beat of preparation. One, two.
- [26:39]
Patricia Marks
Bernard is sort of telling me to do things that I don't understand with the beat and that I'm. I didn't even know it was possible to hold a baton the wrong way, but I was. I thought it would be like tennis, you know, shake hands with the racket, but it's not that. So I proceeded to raise my arm up and down and occasionally outward and hope for the best. Clearly, these guys are really good because they're not getting any help from me. So stop. Okay.
- [27:47]
Bernard Labadie
You actually, at some point started beating suddenly much quicker.
- [27:51]
Patricia Marks
That's good, right?
- [27:53]
Bernard Labadie
Not necessarily. I think it's supposed to be in the same tempo.
- [27:56]
Patricia Marks
Okay.
- [27:57]
Bernard Labadie
And that's because you.
- [27:58]
Patricia Marks
I wanted to personalize it.
- [27:59]
Carol Browner
Yeah.
- [28:00]
Eliza Griswold
Yeah, that's good.
- [28:01]
Patricia Marks
Okay, we'll do it. Let's do it really fast and with regret.
- [28:04]
Bernard Labadie
May I suggest something? Let's do it with only one hand. You don't need the two.
- [28:10]
Patricia Marks
I want it to be a megalomaniac, though.
- [28:12]
Bernard Labadie
That will come in due time, trust me.
- [28:14]
Patricia Marks
Okay.
- [28:15]
Bernard Labadie
So I suggest that let's try to consciously shift the tempo. If you start beating a little quicker, they will follow you. If you start beating a little slower, but, like, trying to get quicker, accelerate, and then decelerate just to see how they react to it.
- [28:36]
Patricia Marks
So I decided to take some amphetamines here and here. I took an Ambien and now it's worn off. So obviously I've mastered the craft of conducting. I sound pretty good. The orchestra sounds good. I know what I'm doing. But maybe it's a little cookie cutter. Maybe it's like every other conductor on the block. I decided I wanted to stand out. I want now to create a visual repertoire. I want to put my personality into my technique, add to the language. Maybe I want to be one of the greats. So here I am pointing at people in the orchestra. I'm leaping and I'm glissading. I'm swatting flies. I'm trying to hitchhike. I'm playing with my hair here. I started doing a little yoga. Could we call this sublime? I have to say this is easier to work than my tv. I want to be careful because I do want to come across as humble, but dare I say I've impressed myself. If there's another baton accident, call me Patty Marks.
- [31:36]
David Remnick
She's been contributing to the New Yorker since 1989.
- [31:40]
Patricia Marks
Will you talk to us? For. Would you want to talk? We're both named Melanie, by the way. Oh, Melanie's. Will you talk to us? Okay. And which instruments? I think I know, but which? You were double bass. Double bass. How'd they do? You did okay. There were moments that you did really well, and then there were moments that you had too much fun. If this were a report card, you'd say, shows improvement. Keep your day job.
- [32:20]
David Remnick
That's the Orchestra of St. Luke's with Bernard Labadee conducting. No musicians were harmed in the making of our story. Not permanently. Anyway, I'm David Remnick, and thanks for joining us. See you next time.
- [32:47]
Carol Browner
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.