The Two­-State Solution, and a Standing Desk Problem

Summary

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The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode Summary: "The Two-State Solution, and a Standing Desk Problem"

Date: January 20, 2017
Host: David Remnick (WNYC Studios and The New Yorker)

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Overview

This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour explores three main segments:

1. The viability and future of the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, featuring perspectives from an Israeli settler-turned-diplomat, a prominent Palestinian pollster, and a liberal Israeli parliamentarian.
2. A cultural review of the rap duo Run the Jewels and their politically charged album, as discussed by New Yorker writer Hua Shu.
3. A humorous essay on the "standing desk" phenomenon by Tom O'Donnell.
4. A literary profile of poet Elizabeth Bishop, including readings and new insights from biographer Megan Marshall.

This summary focuses on the substance and core arguments of the episode’s main topics, with notable moments and quotes identified by timestamp.

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Section 1: The Fate of the Two-State Solution

Context and Introduction

David Remnick lays out the pessimistic landscape surrounding Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects after decades of failed peace attempts and shifting US-Israel relations; he notes the entrenchment of the settler movement and skepticism on both sides.

"It seems to me after so many failed attempts at negotiations, so much violence ... that we've reached a point now that's called a frozen conflict." — David Remnick [02:32]

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Part A: The Settler-Diplomat Perspective—Danny Dayan

Interviewee: Danny Dayan, Israeli Consul General in New York, former leader in the Israeli settler movement.

• On Settler Motivation:

  • "We thought that the right thing to do is to move to Samaria... because Israelis in that area were suffering the terrorist attacks of the first Intifada... We thought that we have to strengthen Israel's presence there." [05:27–06:11]

• On Palestinian Recognition:

  • "As long as the Palestinians do not recognize the right of Israel to exist, not just its de facto existence, but the right of Israel of a Jewish state in that part of the world to exist, it's inevitable that they will try again and again." [06:40]

• On Political Innovation:

  • "I think that we have to be much more innovative... maybe we'll have to engage, I would say, in political architecture... a solution as peculiar as this conflict is peculiar." [07:40–08:17]
  • When pressed for specifics: "I don't know exactly, but we have to stop... What we need desperately in this conflict is fresh thinking." [08:49–08:58]

• On Settler Fate in a Two-State Solution:

  • Suggests settlers could remain as minorities: "They can stay if they want as residents of the Palestinian state... If Nelson Mandela would have said, I want majority rule in South Africa and to expel all the white residents..." [10:21–10:54]

• Memorable Exchange:

  • Remnick: "I don't see any Mandelas around on the scene."
  • Dayan: "No, but in that. That's exactly what I am saying. On the Israeli side included, I see many Mandelas in Israel. I don't see any Mandela in the Palestinian side." [10:54–11:06]

• On Peace Process Realism:

  • Calls for "peaceful non-reconciliation," or living as normally as possible under abnormal conditions, such as easing Palestinian access to Israeli job markets. [12:13–13:39]

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Part B: The Pollster Perspective—Khalil Shikaki

Interviewee: Khalil Shikaki, Palestinian pollster, director of Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research

• On Palestinian Mood:

  • "There's no doubt that the mood among the Palestinians is highly pessimistic." [14:03]

• On Settlement Impact:

  • "The perception is that the Israelis, by building settlements, have made the two state solution no longer viable... Having said that, I would still say that I don't think that we've reached a point of no return." [14:33]

• On Palestinian Priorities:

  • "When we ask Palestinians, what is your most fundamental goal? The Palestinian state is selected by almost half of all Palestinians immediately... independence and sovereignty and self-determination is a deeply rooted interest." [15:39–16:25]

• On Support for Solutions:

  • "About half on both sides support a two state solution... About a third of the Palestinians support a one state solution." [16:47–16:59]
  • Defines one-state in South African terms: "Basically equal political and civil rights in one state ... the South African model." [17:04–17:31]

• On the Unviability of One-State:

  • "I tend to agree ... I don't see the one state solution as viable... a lot of Palestinians turn to that out of the conviction that the two state solution is no longer viable." [17:45]

• On "Sliding Toward One State Reality":

  • "We are sliding in that direction and yes, there are elements of that reality on the ground. But I think the point about this one state reality is when do you reach a point of no return? I do not believe we have reached a point of no return." [19:13–19:51]

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Part C: The Labor Politician Perspective—Merav Michaeli

Interviewee: Merav Michaeli, Israeli Labor Party member

• On the Two-State Solution’s Viability:

  • "The two state solution is so possible and there are so many partners who can make it possible. Yes, it's going to be much more complicated ... but it doesn't mean that it's impossible." [20:12]

• On Political Will in Israel:

  • "Once we have in the chair of the Prime Minister in Israel political will to act out the two state solution, to make it happen. It can be done." [21:15]

• On Public Will vs. Leadership:

  • Insists majority still supports two states, disagrees it’s a "slight" majority: "Not even so slight, that's what I'd say. It's not even so slight." [21:22–21:26]

• On Israeli Political Weakness:

  • Admits Labor’s weakness: "Unfortunately, you are not very wrong. It's true. It's not only about personalities, it's also about the narrative ... some of our center left leaders have come and said there is no partner. Once they have said it, we lost our narrative." [22:48]

• On Decline of Liberal Zionism:

  • "The short answer is no, not at all. But it's a cultural thing. We think of everything as if it was a Hollywood feature ... even if this act, they have their hand up ... doesn't mean that they're going to win after the subtitles go up." [23:49]

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Key Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both, and it won't ever really be at peace." — Recapping John Kerry, David Remnick [03:12]
• "I am quite pessimistic about the date of arrival of the final status agreement." — Danny Dayan [13:30]
• "Despair shouldn't be an option for any of us." — David Remnick [24:33]

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Section 2: Culture & Protest—Run the Jewels and Middle-Aged Hip Hop

Main guest: Hua Shu, New Yorker writer and hip-hop aficionado

• Backstory and Chemistry:

  • LP and Killer Mike come from contrasting backgrounds; their connection was catalyzed by Adult Swim. [27:39]
  • "In 2011, 2012 ... they were both a little despondent, a bit bitter about where their careers were, and they came together and the results have been pretty startling." — Hua Shu [27:39]

• On Retrospection in "Down":

  • Sample lyrics from Killer Mike: "I hope, I hope, I hope with the highest of hope that I never have to go back to the trap and my days of dealing with dope..." [28:44]
  • Comment: "Rappers are particularly good at retrospection and sort of narrating, sort of self mythologizing." — Hua Shu [29:35]

• On Middle Age and Rap:

  • "I think hip hop is a young person's game. Even if you're older ... it's difficult to kind of stay relevant. So they've had to find new audiences." — Hua Shu [30:36]

• On Political Activism:

  • "Killer Mike spent a lot of last year stumping for Bernie Sanders." — Hua Shu [32:33]

• Notable moment — Marketing jokes:

  • Comedy about marketing: "Do you ever think about faking your death to sell records?" [31:38]
  • Killer Mike: "I think we could sell more records if we left LP dead. But he's my friend, and I don't want him dead." [32:14]

• On Protest and Relevance:

  • "I think all music is innately political ... But I think this one [album] is [a protest album]. It may not have been recorded that way ... but there's something really powerful about just the unlikeliness of their story, their friendship." — Hua Shu [34:09]

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Section 3: Comic Relief—The Standing Desk Problem

Author: Tom O’Donnell
Segment: Satirical monologue on the extremes of standing desk evangelism.

• "Sitting has been called the new smoking. The only difference is that smoking looks cool and is a great way to meet people and isn't actually that bad for you. I smoke. Sitting, on the other hand, looks ridiculous and shameful..." — Tom O’Donnell [35:21]

• "In a few months, I might even switch to a treadmill desk, which is a great way to prepare for a swimming desk. By this time next year, I will be dangling from a ceiling mounted rock climbing desk..." [36:41]

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Section 4: Elizabeth Bishop—Life, Love, and Precision

Guests: Megan Marshall (biographer, author of Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast), David Hagland (New Yorker literary editor)

• On Bishop’s Reserve:

  • "She was not a warm presence in the classroom. She began by telling us she didn't believe poetry could be taught, and that was off-putting." — Megan Marshall [40:31]

• Reading of Bishop’s “One Art”:

  • The poignant villanelle is read and discussed as a meditation on loss. [42:10–43:28]
  • "She makes the experience of, you know, that she's describing ... feels universal. And in that way you're not really pushed necessarily to think about, well, what is she describing from her own life?" — Megan Marshall [43:28]

• On the Poem’s Origin:

  • "In fact, most people have read it as an elegy to Lota ... But in fact it was very much about Alice Methfessel, her beloved partner of later years, and her fear... that she would one day lose her." — Megan Marshall [44:08]

• On Bishop’s Letters and Openness:

  • "Do we feel that way about male poets? ... In protecting her, what would be gained? I think, in fact, one of the reasons her reputation is so high is that people have come to know Elizabeth through her letters." — Megan Marshall [47:14]

• On Art as Survival:

  • "For her, the writing of these poems was... a life raft that she could float on and sometimes float away. But it's clear that at an early age, art became the saving grace." — Megan Marshall [51:25]

• Elizabeth Bishop reading “At the Fishhouses”:

  • "...It is like what we imagine knowledge to be. Dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free, drawn from the cold, hard mouth of the world..." [52:11]

• Host signoff:

  • "God, that knocks me out." — David Remnick, after Bishop’s reading [54:42]

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Notable Timestamps (Segment Guide)

• Two-State Solution – Part 1: 00:31–24:33
• Run the Jewels Feature: 26:25–34:46
• Standing Desk Comic Essay: 35:03–37:41
• Elizabeth Bishop Profile: 38:47–54:42

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Additional Memorable Quotes

• "Despair shouldn't be an option for any of us." — David Remnick [24:33]
• "Choose the lesser of the evil people and the devil still gonna win; it could all be over tomorrow. Kill our masters and start again..." — Killer Mike (Run the Jewels lyric), [34:30]

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Conclusion

This episode offers a dense, nuanced look at the political deadlock between Israelis and Palestinians—showcasing entrenched narratives and flickers of hope—contrasted with vibrant cultural discussions (Run the Jewels, Bishop) and a dose of levity. Through interviews and music, it highlights the persistent human need for new stories and new forms, even when solutions—political, artistic, or health-related—remain as elusive as ever.

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Transcript

[David Remnick]

Floor 38.

[Tom O'Donnell]

These are just anecdotes, but it's building.

[Hua Shu]

Up into something more coherent.

[David Hagland]

I think it'd be interesting to really try to unravel what his ties.

[Hua Shu]

There's this sort of country city divide.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Their own convenient ends, and it's not.

[David Remnick]

Clear where it goes next. From one World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC studios and the New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

[Merav Michaeli]

David.

[David Remnick]

Hey, how are you?

[Merav Michaeli]

I'm fine, how are you?

[David Remnick]

Just swell. Everything in the world is going perfectly.

[Merav Michaeli]

Yes, it's our dream world.

[David Remnick]

Yeah, that's Merav Michele, a Labour Party member of the Israeli Parliament. And if she's sarcastic about the state of things today, it's because being a liberal in Israel these days isn't any easier than than being a liberal in the United States or Europe. The way political trends are going in Israel, the hardliners, people like the Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, are beside themselves.

[Merav Michaeli]

You're probably aware of the fact that when you ask Avigdor Lieberman how he is, he always says heaven.

[David Remnick]

Oh God. One of the things that has pleased the right in Israel so much is the changing of the guard in the United States. The Obama administration's ambition to make peace failed miserably. We've got to acknowledge that the relation between the two countries is at an all time low. And the nuclear treaty with Iran enraged the Israeli government further. By the end, Obama and Netanyahu could hardly stand each other. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is sending to Israel as an ambassador, a man after Benjamin Netanyahu's own ideological heart, maybe even more right wing. David Friedman is a lawyer who raised money for the settlements in the west bank. And he's against any concessions at all to the Palestinians. He's called a liberal Zionist group in the United States. Worse than the Kapos in the concentration camps, the Jews who are forced to work for the Nazis in places like Auschwitz. The status quo in Israel is just fine by him. Now, I've been writing about that part of the world for a very long time, since the high water mark of the Oslo Peace Accords. And it seems to me after so many failed attempts at negotiations, so much violence, so much terrorism incitement, so much distrust and repression and uprising, that we've reached a point now that's called a frozen conflict. John Kerry, in one of his last acts as Obama's Secretary of State, issued a dark warning about what it all means Today there are a number. There are a similar number of Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. They have a choice. They can choose to live together in one state, or they can separate into two states.

[Killer Mike]

But here is a fundamental reality.

[David Remnick]

If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both, and it won't ever really be at peace. Moreover, the Palestinians will never fully realize their vast potential in a homeland of their own with a one state solution. Today, we're going to get three perspectives on the prospects for a two state solution. Is it dead or is it just on ice? I'll talk with a liberal member of the Israeli Parliament, a Palestinian pollster and an Israeli diplomat, Benjamin Netanyahu's man in New York. Now, let's rewind for a second. For 50 years now, Israel has faced the question about what to do with the west bank and the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, territory it seized from its neighbors in the Six Day War of 1967. Territories that are tactically important, but also have biblical and political significance for so many. For much of that time, the official goal for a peace settlement has been the two state solution, meaning a sovereign, demilitarized state for the Palestinian Arabs with guarantees of recognition and lasting security for Israel. At the same time, Israelis have also built communities throughout the West Bank. Now, to some extent, it's the same spirit that Americans build suburbs, more room, cheaper housing. But many settlers see the west bank, which they call Judea and Samaria, as promised to them by God. It's theirs, and that's what makes it so charged. And what's more, they build settlements precisely to make a Palestinian state almost impossible to imagine. And in recent years, it's the settlers who have set the dominant tone of politics in Israel. Every politician on the right must pay tribute to their myths, their status as pioneers. Danny Dayan is the Israeli Consul General in New York. But before he came here, he was a settler himself in the West Bank. In fact, he was a leader of the settler movement. Back in the late 80s, Dayan had given up a comfortable life in Tel Aviv, the center of modern, secular Israel.

[Danny Dayan]

In Tel Aviv, we enjoy the cultural scene in Tel Aviv, the shopping, the gastronomic scene in Tel Aviv. Your radio audience cannot see the effects it has on my body. But we thought that the right thing to do is to move to Samaria.

[David Remnick]

When you say the right thing to.

[Danny Dayan]

Do Politically, politically, ideologically, because Israelis in that area were suffering the terrorist attacks of the first Intifada, the Palestinians were rejecting any reasonable solution to the conflict. And we thought that we have to strengthen Israel's presence there.

[David Remnick]

If you talk to Israelis and Palestinians, you quickly discover that both sides cleave to radically different narratives of history, both ancient and recent. The Israeli narrative is one of ancient possession of the land and the right to a homeland in a hostile world. The Palestinian narrative is one of colonial expulsion, displacement and humiliation. For someone like Dayan, a settler, the reason for the ongoing conflict is absolutely clear and beyond question.

[Danny Dayan]

Look, David, as long as the Palestinians do not recognize the right of Israel to exist, not just its de facto existence, but the right of Israel of a Jewish state in that part of the world to exist, it's inevitable that they will try again and again. Because if you think the very existence of Israel is unjust, then of course you will do any effort to put it to an end. They have to recognize the reason, the right of Israel as a Jewish state to exist. Only when that happens, there is a chance that day the peace process will start.

[David Remnick]

Do you think the Obama administration and a lot of liberal Zionist Jews in the United States are naive about the state of affairs in Israel today? It seems to me that more and more people are saying there will be one state and one state only, that Oslo, that two states and all the rest is dead.

[Danny Dayan]

When I reject the idea that the only option to two states is one state, I think that we have to be much more innovative. We need much more, I would say, out of the box thinking maybe we'll have to engage, I would say, in political architecture and try to design a kind of political structure that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. That will be as peculiar, as peculiar a solution as this conflict is peculiar.

[David Remnick]

But what you call peculiar seems to be a recipe for injustice.

[Danny Dayan]

No. Why? Why? No, I don't agree with that.

[David Remnick]

Because if you're going to maintain a Jewish democratic state, it's going to be very hard for it to be Jewish. Considering demographic trends over the years.

[Danny Dayan]

Again, David, you are suggesting that the only option to the two states is one state. But there are other options. We have to think, for instance, in terms of functional compromise instead of territorial compromise.

[David Remnick]

What does that mean?

[Danny Dayan]

I don't know exactly, but we have to stop. What we need desperately in this conflict is fresh thinking, is to put aside all the.

[David Remnick]

But when I hear the fresh thinking from somebody like Naftali Bennett, who's to the right of Netanyahu, but an extremely powerful voice with a lot of support from the settlers, which is the kind of Victor's ethos in Israeli politics today, what I'm hearing is the voice of annexation, proper annexation.

[Danny Dayan]

Well, now you are hearing me. And I think that, as I said, the solution to the conflict doesn't lie with neither at this stage in two states or one state.

[David Remnick]

Isn't it clear that Prime Minister Netanyahu, despite some earlier statements, will refuse to negotiate the establishment of any Palestinian state? Isn't it clear that he has no intention whatsoever of altering the status quo unless he decides in the end to make it even more draconian?

[Danny Dayan]

His position is to this very day his sincere, his genuine position is that if a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes this right of Israel to exist and there are proper security arrangements, that should be the way to solve the conflict.

[David Remnick]

And let's say that did happen. Could you see a scenario in which the settlementsand there are a lot of them in the West Bank. Do you think those people would get up and leave or would it require enormous violence and upheaval and police action to get them to come home?

[Danny Dayan]

Well, if that happens, that's a very big if. As I said, I am very skeptical if that will happen because of the Palestinian positions. I think there is a third option. They can stay if they want as residents of the Palestinian state. Look, imagine, David, if Nelson Mandela would have said, I want majority rule in South Africa and to expel all the white residents of South Africa. I want South Africa without any white presence.

[David Remnick]

I don't see any Mandelas around on the scene.

[Danny Dayan]

No, but in that. That's exactly what I am saying. On the Israeli side included, I see many Mandelas in Israel. I don't see any Mandela in the Palestinians side.

[David Remnick]

Who were the Mandelas on the Israeli side?

[Danny Dayan]

I don't know.

[David Remnick]

Tell me one.

[Danny Dayan]

No, Mandela was a very special person. We are not doing in characterizing now Israeli leaders. But the equivalent here is.

[David Remnick]

But isn't this one of the problems that they. Wait, isn't there a poverty of Israeli political leadership as much as there is anywhere else?

[Danny Dayan]

What we need is a Mandela in the Palestinian side. We need a Mandela in the Palestinian side that will say, okay, we can coexist with ethnic minority of Jews in the state of Palestine. But they say exactly the contrary. And you know, in the 21st century, if you see an aspiring state that says we cannot assimilate as Israel does, for instance, an ethnic minority, then it's a big question if they are mature enough to have sovereignty.

[David Remnick]

You wrote an op ed for the New York Times a couple of years ago calling for peaceful, non reconciliation between Israel and the west bank, what you call Judea and Samaria. What is that? And was it ever implemented? What stopped it?

[Danny Dayan]

Back in 2014 I said that since reconciliation is not possible right now because of the Palestinian attitude towards the right of Israel to exist, then let's opt for the second best. And the second best is to do, to try to live as normally as possible under the abnormal conditions of non reconciliation. And I called for instance, for the rehabilitation of refugee camps without asking any, without any strings attached, asking the Palestinians to renounce what they call the claim of return. Or for instance, I will give you one example, maybe it will explain it best. I don't understand why a Palestinian software engineer from Ramallah has to emigrate to Dubai to find a proper job when Tel Aviv or Jerusalem can offer lots of vacancies. That doesn't mean peace. That means that we have to strive to live as normally as possible until peace arrives. Because as I said, I am quite pessimistic about the date of arrival of the final status agreement.

[David Remnick]

Everywhere you look, pessimism and resignation. You go to the checkpoints in the territories and you see people subjected to daily humiliations. The barbed wire, the walls, the disconnection between Palestinian towns, as if Gaza were a thousand miles from Nablus and Jenin. On the West. There's just no way of escaping the daily feeling of gloom.

[Khalil Shikaki]

There's no doubt that the mood among the Palestinians is highly pessimistic.

[David Remnick]

I reach Khalil Shakaki in Ramallah on the west bank by Skype. Shaki runs the Palestinian center for Policy and Survey Research, and that gives him a unique view of public opinion in the Palestinian territories and in Israel as well. Shakake agrees with John Kerry. There's just been too many wrenches thrown into the machinery of the peace process at this point.

[Khalil Shikaki]

The perception is that the Israelis, by building settlements, have made the two state solution no longer viable, no longer practical, and that the Palestinians do not have the means to force the Israelis to do that. And that the international community either does not care or does not have the capacity to, or the willingness to pressure the Israelis. Having said that, I would still say that I don't think that we've reached a point of no return.

[David Remnick]

So you believe that despite the rhetoric, and let's stick to the Palestinian side for the moment, you believe that despite the rhetoric that we hear, whether it's on the street or in various political factions, that a two state solution could not only happen, that it could hold, that it could be secure, that it could be Peaceful, even in that incredibly volatile neighborhood of the Middle East.

[Khalil Shikaki]

I'll tell you something. Even in the midst of this pessimism that is currently prevailing, when we ask Palestinians, what is your most fundamental goal? The Palestinian state is selected by almost half of all Palestinians immediately. So in other words, when you ask people to think about their interests, the question of statehood comes up almost immediately. And the next thing that comes after it is where are we behind it? That's very clear that for most Palestinians, this notion of independence and sovereignty and self determination is a deeply rooted interest that is very, very difficult for it to go away.

[David Remnick]

In other words, for all the rhetoric directed against Israel, for all the resentment, all the lost hope and rage, Shakake thinks most Palestinians would still take a pragmatic choice of accepting Israel in order to gain their own statehood and security. What does your polling show that the Israelis and the Palestinians see as their options?

[Khalil Shikaki]

Well, about half on both sides support a two state solution. Sometimes a little bit more here, a little bit there. About a third of the Palestinians support a one state solution.

[David Remnick]

And that means what? To them, one state solution means what?

[Khalil Shikaki]

Basically equal political and civil rights in one state. Two communities, but one single state. Jews of Palestine of Israel and Palestinians of Palestine, Israel, including Israeli Arabs, in other words, would all live in one single state? Basically the South African model. The South African model.

[David Remnick]

A post apartheid South Africa.

[Khalil Shikaki]

Absolutely. Yes, indeed.

[David Remnick]

Now people who object to a one state solution say, yeah, that's the solution. Sounds like Bosnia. In other words, it's a solution that will end up in inevitable conflict. Do you agree?

[Khalil Shikaki]

I tend to agree with that, yes. I don't see the one state solution as viable. I think a lot of Palestinians turn to that out of the conviction that the two state solution is no longer viable and that the future is a one state reality. And that this one state reality, whether we like it or not, is here to stay because Israel is becoming more right wings and will not agree to grant Palestinians freedom and independence and so on. And that therefore all we have to do is just wait five, 10 more years and the reality on the ground will be visible to everyone. To see the whole international community and the Israelis themselves will see that what they have created is a system of apartheid throughout the west bank and that this system is not tenable.

[David Remnick]

Now, this is a little complicated. What he's saying is that a lot of Palestinians think things might well get worse before they get better. In this way of thinking, annexation by Israel would put them under a system of unambiguous apartheid and that would be so bad that Israel, like South Africa, would over time and under great international pressure, feel isolated and finally yield to a more just form of government for both peoples. Well, you wrote a study called Sliding Toward a one state Reality. Isn't the one state reality already in place?

[Khalil Shikaki]

We are sliding in that direction and yes, there are elements of that reality on the ground. But I think the point about this one state reality is when do you reach a point of no return? I do not believe we have reached a point of no return and I think we still have time to put this two state solution together.

[David Remnick]

Mirav, is the two state solution absolutely dead in your mind?

[Merav Michaeli]

Oh no. Oh, so no.

[David Remnick]

Back to Merav Michele, the former journalist and member of the parliament in the centre left Labour Party. The Labour Party's not given up on the two state solution. Although to be honest, most members are just not talking much about it at all.

[Merav Michaeli]

The two state solution is so possible and there are so many partners who can make it possible. Yes, it's going to be much more complicated than it was 10 and 20 and 30 and of course 50 years ago. But it doesn't mean that it's impossible. The forces who are against the two state solution are much louder and much more powerful these days. But there is still a huge part of both Israeli public and Palestinian public who believes that this is the solution. And still to this day, if you count fingers in Israeli Parliament, there still is a majority for an agreement within the parliament. Once we have in the chair of the Prime Minister in Israel political will to act out the two state solution, to make it happen. It can be done.

[David Remnick]

So now you say that a majority on both sides, a slight majority on both sides is still for a two state solution. But you know, at the same time those same.

[Merav Michaeli]

Not even so slight, that's what I'd say. It's not even so slight.

[David Remnick]

But the same polls will say an even bigger majority on both sides say that we don't have a partner for peace and that the conditions are not ripe and that neither side trusts the other. You know, we've run around this maypole for years and years, but that's that faith seems to be disintegrating all the time.

[Merav Michaeli]

I couldn't agree more. And I think the people who feel that and think that are right to feel that and to think that because this would be their experience. I mean if you think of the population on both sides, I think there are many more people who were born only into a reality of failures. In that sense, different kinds of peace processes and roads of maps who have constantly and repeatedly failed. So of course they should feel like that. But that doesn't mean that you can't change the way they feel and you can't change the way they think.

[David Remnick]

Now, the leadership that's pro2state solutions seems, at least from a distance, awfully weak. We're talking about a Labor Party, the inheritance of the Labour Party, led by Isaac Herzog, who does not seem like a powerful presence on the Israeli political scene. Am I wrong?

[Merav Michaeli]

Unfortunately, you are not very wrong. It's true. It's not only about personalities, it's also about the narrative, our narrative. That was the two state solution with a partner with really good prospects for peace and security. Security and peace is lost a lot because some of our center left leaders have come and said there is no partner. Once they have said it, we lost our narrative and it's very, very difficult for us to gain our own confidence in this. But the truth of the matter, as a member of the Foreign affairs and Defense Committee and the subcommittees, I can that it still is possible, that it's totally possible and achievable if only we have the political will for it.

[David Remnick]

A final question, and it's this, and it's blunt and I think I know where you'll go with this, but has liberal Zionism died and has religious nationalism won in Israel?

[Merav Michaeli]

Well, that's very funny that you should ask this. The short answer is no, not at all. But it's a cultural thing. We think of everything as if it was a Hollywood feature, as if it ends, you know, and after an hour and a half, well, this is not how life is. After the end of the feature, life continues. So even if this act, they have their hand up, you know, and they are winning in this act, doesn't mean that they're going to win after the subtitles go up.

[David Remnick]

I think Merav Micheli is right. History doesn't end, it doesn't lock into place. Things can shift in the most unlikely ways. Look at our own country, for the moment at least. All the major factors, the dominance of the right in Israel, in the United States, the chaos of Palestinian politics, the ominous state of the larger Middle east. All of that makes it harder to be an optimist with every passing day. There's no point now being nostalgic for the peace process as it was in the 90s. This is a conflict that's been going on for fully a century and it's not going to end anytime soon. But with the future of so many people at stake, Israelis as well as Palestinians, not to mention the ramifications for the United States, the region and the world. Despair shouldn't be an option for any of us. I'm David Remnick. Still ahead today, a new look at the life of the great poet Elizabeth Bishop and a new album from the rap duo Run the Jewels. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

[Khalil Shikaki]

Sam.

[David Remnick]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. One of the records music fans are buzzing about right now is from the rap duo Run the Jewels. Over the holidays they released their third album with the title Run the Jewels 3, which is nice and straightforward. Hwa Shu, who writes about music for the New Yorker and is a particular expert in hip hop, has been following these artists for quite some time. It's two guys, Killer Mike, who was associated with the hit group outkast, and lp, who was a hero in the underground indie rap world, what people sometimes call backpack rap.

[Hua Shu]

I was one of these people who grew up listening to LP when he was in Company Flow, and in the mid-90s. They were so kind of raw and boisterous and cacophonous. I just didn't really see his aesthetic fitting with Mike, who sounded really good alongside Outkast. There was something really kind of funky and soulful about his best tracks, and I just didn't really think that they would sound that good together. But I think that their friendship provides this chemistry that makes the group pretty good.

[David Remnick]

What brought these two guys together really? They started rapping and they were nobodies and their insiders and outsiders at the same time. What kind of brought them into the same room musically?

[Hua Shu]

They came together because an executive from the Cartoon Network thought that they would sound good with one another, and he had commissioned both of them to do tracks for an Adult Swim single series. And they met and weirdly enough, they hit it off. They're both 41. They've been in the world of hip hop since their teens. It was sort of odd for them to encounter one another and befriend one another in their late they had such radically different backgrounds. They came from different kind of worlds within hip hop. Mike is black. He grew up in working class Atlanta. LP is white. He grew up in a decent part of Brooklyn. But Somehow in around 2011, 2012, they were both a little despondent, a bit bitter about where their careers were, and they came together and the results have been pretty startling. One of my favorite tracks off the new album is the first track down where Mike and LP sort of Talk about what it's like to look back upon sort of all the time that they've survived.

[Killer Mike]

I hope, I hope, I hope with the highest of hope that I never have to go back to the trap and my days of dealing with dope. So I, I only spitfire and dope. So later on you can go quote my lives to your people and folk. And they say, dang, that boy be sitting that pressure and he be smoking that pressure and he's smart as a professor, yes sir. 25 lighters on dresser Pound of that pressure Sitting right next to him next to her next to a book and a gun Ballad of bullet you better use 1 time for the freedom of speech 2 time for the right to hold hoop just give to the fifth of the cops in the house Close your mouth and pray to your teeth that's why. Cause the devil a lie so I stay holy and high May never get rich but I never.

[Hua Shu]

Yeah, that was down. And I think rappers are particularly good at retrospection and sort of narrating, sort of self mythologizing. And I think that track does a really good job where Mike's sort of looking back at all that he's endured and sort of marveling at the fact that he's still here and he's still standing and that he's found not only a rich collaborator, but a best friend.

[David Remnick]

So they became critics darlings after a while. Run the jewels. What did they give you that you weren't getting from other music?

[Hua Shu]

You know, a lot of what's driving hip hop right now, like young people, the Internet, sort of reinventing the form, kind of breaking the form apart. The really interesting part about them coming together is I think it conveys some of the difficulty of being middle aged and rapping.

[David Remnick]

Believe me, I get the ailments and problems of middle aged. But for rappers in particular, what sets in that's a problem. What's the sort of innate difficulty of being middle aged as a rapper?

[Hua Shu]

I think hip hop is a young person's game. Even if you're older, I mean, in hip hop age older, it's difficult to kind of stay relevant. And so they've had to find new audiences in terms of subject.

[David Remnick]

In terms of language.

[Hua Shu]

Yeah, subject, language, sort of the sonic characteristic. You know, back in the day, they could really kind of revel in being these rebellious outsiders. I think now in the age of kind of labels not being what they once were, you really have to market yourself differently. So they publicize their albums through buzzfeed. They've toured with A lot of rock bands, when they, surprise, leaked the AL over the winter break, they actually filmed a short Portlandia skit with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. And I should note that Killer Mike is by far the funniest person in the skit.

[David Remnick]

All right, guys, we are so excited to talk strategy for the new album. We're really excited to hear what you have to say. First of all, do you know what an album drop is? Yeah. When you drop an album and with no lead time and no press, and you just kind of give it to.

[Killer Mike]

Everybody by surprise, boom.

[David Remnick]

But even that tame now. Yeah, that's too slow. So one thing you could do is you could fake your death. Do you ever think about doing that?

[Megan Marshall]

I have.

[David Remnick]

Look, you make an announcement. I'm dead. I'm really sorry. I've gone.

[Killer Mike]

But if you're dead, how do you announce it?

[Merav Michaeli]

Such a good question.

[David Remnick]

So if LP is the one that dies, okay, then you're the one that announces it. All the fans show up to the funeral. Right?

[Hua Shu]

Look.

[David Remnick]

What a sad day. What? It's moving.

[Danny Dayan]

Call the police.

[David Remnick]

No, don't stop. He's alive and he's got the album. His death was the new record.

[Killer Mike]

I think we could sell more records if we left LP dead. But he's my friend, and I don't want him dead.

[David Remnick]

He's not dead.

[David Hagland]

Okay.

[David Remnick]

It's not gonna work. Love that. Now, these guys, their music is a lot more political than the mainstream of hip hop these days, isn't it?

[Hua Shu]

Yeah. I mean, I think all music is innately political, but I think, you know, Killer Mike spent a lot of last year stumping for Bernie Sanders.

[David Remnick]

He was early on that campaign.

[Hua Shu]

He was. And I actually, weirdly enough, was one of the first people to interview Killer Mike in the early 2000s, when he was one of Outkast's proteges. And even at that time, I knew that he was a lot more than the image he conveyed. You know, he rapped about dealing drugs, about sort of being in the streets. But, you know, I knew that he was really into reading. He was really into philosophy. He was really into sociology. He really had this political intellect that I think a lot of people are now recognizing is really thoughtful and fleshed out. And I think this really comes across on the last track on the album, a report to the shareholders, Kill your masters. Which, you know, reflects on their encounter and sort of how unlikely their friendship is, but also kind of looks forward today when they can kill their masters.

[Killer Mike]

I mean, a horse is a horse, of course, but who rides is important Sitting high with the uniform parking orders the man of order and I'm scared that I talk too much about what I think's going on I got away with this they might drag me away for this Put me in a cage for this I might pay for this I just save what I bought like I made for this But I'm afraid some days I might be wrong maybe that that's why me and Mike get along hey, not from the same part of town but we both hear the same sound coming and it sounds like.

[David Remnick]

War well, you said that all music is political to some degree, but not all albums are protest albums. And I think this one is, isn't it?

[Hua Shu]

I think. I think it is. It may not have been recorded that way since I don't think that they were foreseeing the election of Donald Trump, per se, but I do think there's something really powerful about just the unlikeliness of their story, their friendship. It's not the answer, but it's a start.

[Killer Mike]

Choose the lesser of the evil people and the devil still gonna win it could all be over tomorrow Kill our masters and start again but we know we all afraid so we just simply cry and march again at the bim Convenient My heart broke apart when I seen the march mama's in.

[David Remnick]

That's music from Run the Jewels, the duo of Killer Mike and lp. And I talk with the New Yorkers. Hua Shu. And now a little unwanted chitchat by the water cooler.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Hey, Gary. How's it going?

[Danny Dayan]

Hey.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Good weekend?

[Megan Marshall]

Yeah.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Your back seems a little. You seem a little folded up there. You okay? Sweat on the brows. That some back pain going on? I'm here to tell you, sitting all day is killing you. All right, Care Bear. That's why I switched to a standing desk. And if you know what's good for you, you will, too.

[Danny Dayan]

Okay.

[Tom O'Donnell]

According to an important WebMD article that my friend Tony described to me, every minute you spend sitting shaves years off your life. Yeah, indeed, sitting has been called the new smoking. The only difference is that smoking looks cool and is a great way to meet people and isn't actually that bad for.

[David Remnick]

For you.

[Tom O'Donnell]

I smoke. Sitting, on the other hand, looks ridiculous and shameful, like you're afraid to admit how tall you are and is terrible for you. The human body simply wasn't meant to be folded up for long stretches like a sad pretzel. It was meant to be held ramrod straight like a noble pretzel stick. Fact. The average person sits for more than 19 hours a day. I'm not sure sitting for long stretches interferes with your body's production of an enzyme called lpl, which you need or something.

[Khalil Shikaki]

Fact.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Even regular exercise isn't enough to counteract the damage from all this sitting. Meaning that regular exercise is stupid and pointless. I don't exercise.

[David Remnick]

Oh, you should. Definitely.

[Tom O'Donnell]

I was once a standing desk skeptic too. But after I made the switch four days ago, I could immediately sense a difference in how I felt. Way more self righteous. I used to get home from work totally exhausted. Now I'm brimming with energy. Instead of collapsing onto the couch, I pace my apartment all night long in ever tightening circles. I simply cannot sleep knowing that there are so many people out there at their desks sitting.

[David Remnick]

I just gotta.

[Tom O'Donnell]

I know what you're thinking. Won't I look strange if I'm the only one in my office standing up to work? Well, not as strange as you're gonna look when you keel over dead at your computer from a lethal combination of sciatica and weak calves. Until Somebody describes a WebMD article that changes my mind, I will use a standing desk. In a few months, I might even switch to a treadmill desk, which is a great way to prepare for a swimming desk. By this time next year, I will be dangling from a ceiling mounted rock climbing desk, my body swollen from all the extra LPL I'm producing. Unfortunately, by this time next year, unless you make the switch from sitting to standing, you will almost certainly be dead. Just FYI. All right, later Gary. Hey. Hey Susan, you gotta check out this standing desk. All right, I'll wait till you get off the phone. I can wait. I can stand all day.

[David Remnick]

I switched to a standing desk, so now you should too. That's a piece by Tom o', Donnell, performed for the New Yorker Rating Hour by Dylan Dawson. In a minute, a new look at the life of the poet Elizabeth Bishop, whose late secret love affair inspired one of her most famous poems. That's coming up on the New Yorker Radio Hour. Next week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, we'll talk football with a father and a son who are both very deep into the sport. Dad was a linebacker in the NFL and his son plays for a top notch high school team in Florida. They're both passionate about the sport, but struggling with everything we know now about head injuries and brain damage. I'll also talk with Atul Gawande about healthcare in America if or maybe it's a matter of when Obamacare is repealed. That's all coming next week.

[Elizabeth Bishop (reading)]

This is A Nova Scotian poem about the east coast of Nova Scotia called At the Fish Houses. Although it's a cold evening, down by one of the fish houses an old man sits netting his net in the gloaming, almost invisible, a dark purple brown and his shuttle worn and polished. The air smells so strong of codfish it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water.

[David Remnick]

Elizabeth bishop published just 101 poems in her entire lifetime. She was not especially prolific, and that economy is part of what made her tick. She's famous for her precision but also her reserve. Right when confessional poetry came into fashion. With Robert Lowell writing about his family and his marriages, or later on, Sylvia Plath writing about her father, Elizabeth Bishop kept her personal life out of her writing almost completely, or so it seemed. There's a new biography of Bishop by Megan Marshall, who's discovered a big trove of the poet's unpublished letters, and they suggest that Bishop's poems were maybe a little bit more revealing than they seemed at first, at least in the personal sense. Marshall sat down with newyorker.com literary editor David Hagland.

[Megan Marshall]

Megan, I wanted to start with a line in your book, you tell us. I had not been close to Elizabeth Bishop. Indeed, I had reason to think she might dislike me. And it's a very striking line to encounter at the beginning of a biography. And I thought maybe you could just describe how you encountered Bishop and why you had that impression.

[David Hagland]

Well, you're cutting to the chase here. You know, I've often thought that my interest in biography and writing biography began in those years when I was a student poet at Harvard and studying with Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. I was in their class. I was near them but still at a distance, kind of a biographer's distance. And I hadn't really thought about writing about Elizabeth Bishop, and as you noted there, we hadn't particularly gotten along. I think what I really wanted to say was Elizabeth Bishop was a fascinating personality. She was not a warm presence in the classroom. She began by telling us she didn't believe poetry could be taught, and that was off putting. But I was one of 11 students who hung on and took the course with her, and I was still part of the group by the end of the semester, and we were all invited to her condominium on Lewis Wharf for a party where she suddenly was a much warmer person and I could really see who she was beyond this sort of shy, almost cold person. She had just published Geography 3, her last book, in which her best known poem, One Art appear and we were very lucky that one of her poet friends there pressed her to read that poem. And it's a moment that I'll never forget.

[Megan Marshall]

Well, the poem's short enough. I wonder if we should go ahead and read it. Do you have it in front of you?

[David Hagland]

Let me get hold of it. Okay. One art the art of losing isn't hard to master so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster Lose something every day Accept the fluster of lost door keys the hour badly spent the art of losing isn't hard to master Then practice losing farther, losing faster Places and names and where it was you meant to travel none of these will bring disaster I lost my mother's watch and look my last or next to last of three loved houses went the art of losing isn't hard to master I lost two cities lovely ones and vaster some realms I owned Two rivers, a continent I missed them but it wasn't a disaster Even losing you the joking voice A gesture I love I shan't have lied it's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master Though it may look like Write it like disaster it really is such a perfect poem.

[Megan Marshall]

One thing that is striking about the biography is really coming to understand more of the story behind it, which I really didn't. And even though I had read the poem many times, you know, in a funny way, I mean, she makes the experience of, you know, that she's describing the experience of losing, of losing small things, of losing big things, of losing people and places. It feels universal. And in that way you're not really pushed necessarily to think about, well, what is she describing from her own life?

[David Hagland]

Yeah. And in fact, most people have read it as an elegy to Lada Jamesedu Swarsh, her lover and partner in Brazil, who died tragically after their 15 year relationship was coming to an end. Probable suicide. So it seemed obvious to people that this even losing you. That great line at the end was referring to Lotta. But in fact it was very much about Alice Methfessel, her beloved partner of later years, and her fear, which had been there all along. Alice was much younger. Elizabeth's health was perhaps challenged even when they met when she was in her early 60s, you know, a sense that she would one day lose her. She said that it was pure emotion. And I think that was not typical of her poems.

[Megan Marshall]

Well, and that connection between the poem and her relationship with Alice wouldn't really be clear to us except for the letters that you came upon before writing the book, these letters between Elizabeth and Alice that people hadn't seen before.

[David Hagland]

Yeah. I had thought there need be no new biography written of Elizabeth Bishop until I learned that there was a whole trove of letters that Alice Methfessel, who had been Elizabeth's heir and executor, she had held back a number of really key correspondences when she sold letters to Vassar College. Alice had held on to her own correspondence with Elizabeth, which people didn't know existed. Also to last letters that Lauda had written in the last months of her life, and a number of very intense confessional letters she'd written to her psychoanalyst in the 1940s. So these really opened the life up. And it was in the letters to Alice that I began to see how clearly this poem was about a time when Alice, after four years or so of the relationship with Elizabeth, Elizabeth had a problem with drinking and. And this was getting to be too much for Alice, who decided, it seemed, for a short while, that she would marry a man leaving Elizabeth. And that was what provoked 17 drafts of a poem that became one. Art.

[Megan Marshall]

And the letters are very moving. You know, one of the larger questions that I think the biography raises is Bishop has this, you know, long standing reputation as a very private and guarded person. And as a reader of hers, you inevitably wrestle with the question of to what extent that was simply her temperament or disposition or something that she chose, and to what extent it was in some sense forced upon her because she couldn't be open.

[David Hagland]

Well, I'll have to tell you, when I started reading these letters in the archive at Vassar, particularly the ones she'd written to her psychoanalysts, which were very revealing about her early relationships with women as a girl, I started to cry. I thought, you know, this can't go out there. The woman that I knew would be appalled. But then I thought, well, you know, do we feel that way about male poets? Do we not write about Yeats and his, you know, proclivities? I mean, why protect Elizabeth Bishop? And in protecting her, what would be gained? I think, in fact, one of the reasons her reputation is so high is that people have come to know Elizabeth through her letters. Why skip these letters? In fact, I think they're all the more important to really understand a woman, what she was, you know, in a way, concealing, but also revealing in these poems. I mean, I've always loved her poem the Shampoo, which was, I guess, a little bit too graphic in the 1950s. Even though it's hard to tell that it's a love poem. But it was one of the few poems after the point at which she had a first read contract at the New Yorker that was turned away by the New Yorker. And I think because you just couldn't help yourself from realizing this was a woman writing about wanting to shampoo the hair of her. Probably her lover. It's a love poem, and I don't know if you'd like to.

[Megan Marshall]

Yeah, let's read that one. It's really beautiful.

[David Hagland]

Yeah. Gotta find it in my book. And I think you hear in it these rhythms of Brazil that she has come to love along with her lover, Lotta. The shampoo. The still explosions on the rocks. The lichens grow by spreading gray concentric shocks. They have arranged to meet the rings around the moon. Although within our memories they have not changed. And since the heavens will attend as long on us. You've been dear friend, precipitate and pragmatical. And look what happens. For time is nothing if not amenable. The shooting stars in your black hair in bright formation are flocking where so straight so soon. Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin, battered and shiny like the moon. What a wonderful way of describing the moon. You think even aside from this scene of. Elizabeth and Lotta were living in the house that Lotta had designed and was constructing on this kind of remote hillside mountainside in Brazil. And they really. They truly did have, you know, a marriage. More than the later relationship with Alice, which had to be sort of COVID This was. They were open in this relationship. And maybe because it was mostly lived up in the hillside. And they could be select about who would come and visit them. But this poem was too much for Catherine White at the New Yorker. And also too much for the editor of Poetry magazine. And only several years later found publication in the New Republic.

[Megan Marshall]

Well, in some ways, that's the other aspect of Bishop's reputation that, for me, the reading, the biography really challenged. Which is that, you know, we think of her as very guarded in her work as well. But so much does come through. And, you know, reading the book, I started to feel like Bishop experienced an unusual amount of tragedy in her life. Her father died when she was just eight months old. And her mother suffered from mental illness and was institutionalized when Bishop was still quite young. And then there were people throughout her life who. Who died tragically. I don't know if that's just the effect of seeing someone's whole life between two covers, but it started to feel as though she experienced an unusual amount of sadness.

[David Hagland]

Yeah, I think you're right. And she, for the most part, handled it bravely and gracefully, I think we'd say. And that for her, the writing of these poems was. They were kind of like a life raft that she could float on and sometimes float away. But it's clear that at an early age, art became the saving grace. For Elizabeth, it was art. It was the poetry that allowed her to survive and that she's left us such a great gift.

[Megan Marshall]

Before we go, I thought we could listen to a little bit more of Bishop's poetry. We have a recording of Bishop herself reading the poem at the Fish Houses. And it's a long poem, but I thought we could listen to her reading the last section.

[Elizabeth Bishop (reading)]

Down at the water's edge, at the place where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp descending into the water. Thin silver tree trunks are laid horizontally across the gray stones, down and down at intervals of 4 or 5ft. Cold, dark, deep and absolutely clear element. Bearable to no mortal, to fish and to seals. One seal particularly, I've seen here evening after evening. He was curious about me. He was interested in music, like me, a believer in total immersion. So I used to sing him Baptist hymns. I also sang A Mighty Fortress as our God. He stood up and the water and regarded me, steadily moving his head a little. Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge almost in the same spot with a sort of shrug, as if it were against his better judgment. Cold, dark, deep and absolutely clear. The clear, gray, icy water. Back behind us, the dignified tall firs begin bluish. Associated with their shadows, a million Christmas trees stand waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended above the rounded gray and blue gray stones. I've seen it over and over. The same sea, the same, slightly indifferently swinging above the stones, icily free. Above the stones, above the stones, and then the world. If you should dip your hand in, your wrist would ache immediately. Your bones would begin to ache, and your hand would burn as if the water were a transmutation of fire that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame. If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter, then briny, then surely burn your tongue. It is like what we imagine knowledge to be. Dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free, drawn from the cold, hard mouth of the world, derived from the rocky breasts forever flowing and drawn. And since our knowledge is historical, flowing and flown.

[David Remnick]

God, that knocks me out. Elizabeth Bishop. Reading at the Fish Houses, the New Yorker's David Hagland spoke with Megan Marshall, author of the new book Elizabeth A Miracle for Breakfast. Thanks for being part of the New Yorker Radio Hour. If you missed anything today, you can hear the whole show and in fact everything we've ever [e-mail] I'm David Remnick and have a great week. 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 Garbutts of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Botin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Sarah Nix, Michael Rayfiel, Maithili Rao and Stephen Valentino, with help from Susan Morrison, Emma Allen, Becky Cooper and Johnny Vincevans. Elizabeth Bishop's poems are used with permission from Farrar Strauss and Charou and help from the Library of Congress's Recorded Sound Research Center. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Tsarina Endowment Fund.