Even after a lifetime in dance, Robert Battle still gets pre-show jitters, and that’s OK. “It is a part of the adrenalin that makes the performance more tangible.” Listen: personplacething.org

After years with the Ailey company, Robert Battle is choreographing for the Paul Taylor company. “I’m making work because I love it. I’m not trying to climb any ladder. I think I did that, and really feel that this is where I’m supposed to be.” Listen: personplacething.org

When Robert Battle was a kid, someone interested in dance was a target for bullies, but he had a solution. “I was he only guy walking around my neighborhood in 100 degree weather in a kung fu suit.” Listen: personplacething.org

Robert Battle’s first dance shoes were a potent symbol, connecting him to the entire history of dance. “And then of course I choose modern dance, and there are no shoes. What the hell?!” Listen: personplacething.org

A choreographer with the Paul Taylor company, Lauren Lovette was home schooled by her religious family. “I was very afraid of any faith that was different than mine.” Then she visited a Buddhist temple in Tokyo. Hear what happened: personplacething.org

Travel, especially for a young person, can present delightful new ideas. Lauren Lovette, a choreographer with the Paul Taylor company, disagrees. “No. It broke the foundations of who I was.” Listen: personplacething.org

When Lauren Lovette went from dancer to choreographer, she found inspiration in an album by the The Books: “It felt—I don’t want to say dirty—but it felt wrong.” Delightfully so. Listen: personplacething.org

David LaMarche, music director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, rarely chooses the music. “The choreographer most of the time has a piece in mind.” And yet he pockets his paycheck. Quite rightly. Listen: personplacething.org

David LaMarche, the Paul Taylor Dance Company’s conductor, eschews the computer screen, marking up his scores with a pencil, and not just any pencil, the Palomino Blackwing 602. Hear why: personplacething.org.

David LaMarche, conductor and music director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, began as rehearsal pianist for the Dance theater of Harlem, whose founder, Arthur Mitchel, advised: “I think you’d be a good conductor.” A star is born. Listen: personplacething.org

Comic @MyqKaplan.bsky.social says of Rini, his partner in life and work, “We plan to be together forever. We don’t want to die.” The best sort of immortality: defy death. Listen: personplacething.org

Comics necessarily embellish.@MyqKaplan.bsky.social says, “I have a 100% obligation to the truth. I don’t have a 100% obligation to the facts. truth vs TRUTH. Listen: personplacething.org

Matias Tarnopolsky loves going to the office: “All of us who work there are thrilled and pinch ourselves every day.” He’s CEO of the New York Philharmonic; he does not work at the White House. Listen: personplacething.org

Matias Tarnopolsky, CEO of the NY Philharmonic, on their new conductor, Gustavo Dudamel: “He doesn’t know a world without music.” And soon, vice versa. Sort of. Listen: personplacething.org

The head of the NY Philharmonic recalls: “When we performed the theme from Star Wars, the audience went absolutely bananas.” In a good way. Presumably. Listen: personplacething.org

Mark Train made bold remarks about Frederic Church, says Victoria Johnson. “”Twain thought what Twain thought, but he was a dear friend of Frederic Church.” Sounds like trouble to me. Hear what Twain thought: personplacething.org

Victoria Johnson recalls that “Frederic Church was working on this painting throughout the events that will result in the American Civil War.” The name of that painting: Happy Party Fun Time. No no: Twilight in the Wilderness. Listen: personplacething.org

Victoria Johnson says, “Frederic Church charged twenty-five cents to see one of his paintings, and twelve thousand people lined up.” And that was in 1860, when 25 cents was a lot, and 12,000 people were like, oh, a zillion today. Listen: personplacething.org

Ben Furnas @bfurnas.bsky.social of @TransAlt.org defends reading on a Kindle instead of a book (not that it needs defending): “It keeps me from looking at my phone.” And burglary keeps me from murder, he did not add. Listen: personplacething.org

Ben Furnas @bfurnas.bsky.social leads @TransAlt.org, whose advocacy improves public space and is valuable in itself: “Any activity that brings people together is a lovely thing.” Excluding Ed Sheeran concerts, he did not add. Listen: personplacething.org

For Ben Furnas @bfurnas.bsky.social of @TransAlt.org “It is all these different communities overlaid in one place trying to figure out how to live together.” Planet earth? The Prospect Park loop drive. Sharing public space. Listen: personplacething.org

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: I am downgrading Lake Superior to Lake Barely Adequate.

Historian Harold Holzer recalls that Lincoln was once challenged to a duel. “As the challenged party, Lincoln chose the weapon, and he chose broad swords.: Hear how it played out: personplacething.org

If you asked Lincoln in 1860, when he thought slavery might end,” says Harold Holzer, “he would probably say 1900.” And he’d predict flying cars by the same year. Great president, poor prognosticator. Listen: personplacething.org

Lincoln wrote his own speeches, notes Harold Holzer—pretty good stuff. “Harriet Beecher Stowe said his words deserve to be inscribed in letters of gold.” To be fair, Donald Trump probably knows who Harriet Beacher Stowe is. (No, he doesn’t.) personplacething.org

Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social is a sci-fi fan because this genre is not just about the future but the present, and “our present is always about the past.” My head is spinning. Listen: personplacething.org

Social scientist Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social enjoys Octavia Butler’s work. “It’s a reminder to not just read the news but read fiction.” Or do both simultaneously by watching CBS News, she did not add. Listen: personplacething.org

It was worth the price of admission just for her Place: my head is still spinning. My thanks to her, the Armory, and my neck doctor.

Alondra Nelson@alondra.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I recently joined @randycohen48.bsky.social for a recording of the Person Place Thing podcast at the Park Avenue Armory. We had good conversation about race, history, and futures Person: WEB DuBois Place: the interface Thing: Kindred a novel by Octavia Butler personplacething.org/590-alondra-...

Ophthalmologist Herb Gould pioneered intraocular lens surgery. What made it possible? One word: Plastics. Hear why: personplacething.org

As a young Air Force doctor, Herb Gould would go out for beers with Werhner von Braun. “I don’t care about the politics; I only care about the rockets.” That's Herb, not Werhner. Listen: personplacething.org