Alvin Toffler and Margaret Mead, an author and an anthropologist who endeavored to understand the impact of scientific invention. In this episode of our series, The Experimenters, we hear from two visionaries who believed that while we’ve started a technological revolution, we don’t quite know where it’s going to take us. But maybe most interesting of all […]

Oliver Sacks, Jacques Cousteau, and George Washington Carver. Our podcast returns with lost interviews featuring this trio on self, sight, and deep-sea diving. The three icons had the imaginations and daring to go where none had gone before. They overcame indifference and bigotry, exploring the darkest depths of the ocean, and even challenging their own deepest assumptions. These […]

“The evolutionary record is clear that extraterrestrials would be very different from us” – Carl Sagan in 1985, as told to Studs Terkel.   The incomprehensible vastness of the universe, the wonder of our own place in it all… Carl Sagan was able to explain the science of space in a way everyone could understand. As part of […]

“I have to make my life worth saving, and each day you spend as if it would be your last” – Dame Steve Shirley in 2010 Dame Stephanie Shirley might be the most successful tech entrepreneur you have never heard of. In the early 1960s, Shirley started a barrier-breaking, all-woman software company that would eventually be valued at $3 billion. From […]

“Everything in my mind works like a search engine set for the image function.” – Temple Grandin in 2008 This rarely heard oral history with the autism activist, author, and professor of animal science, was uncovered at Colorado State University. In this conversation, Temple Grandin is at her best, explaining for the rest of us what it’s […]

“Any man who really has faith in himself will be dubbed arrogant by his fellows” – Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957, as told to Mike Wallace Architect Frank Lloyd Wright did something new when he made buildings that somehow became one with the landscape. Long, low lines, and interiors that brought the light and space […]

“I wish that there had been another woman on my flight. I think it would have been a lot easier.” – Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, shortly after her historic launch in 1983. Interviewed by Gloria Steinem. At the time of this interview, as far as the public – and it turns out […]

“My family was shocked when I came home with a volume of Hemingway … There was a price to be paid for being interested in fiction.” – Garrison Keillor in 1994 In this new episode we have a conversation with a true storyteller, the humorist, Garrison Keillor. This interview was recorded in front a live […]

“It’s a good time for black people to be alive. It’s a lot of hell. A lot of violence, but I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I’ve dreamed.” - Nina Simone in 1968, from a rare interview that’s never been heard before.

“Nothing means anything — except the artist makes his living by pretending, by putting it in a meaningful hole, though no such holes exist.” – Kurt Vonnegut in 1970 Kurt Vonnegut walked into a class room at NYU in November 1970. He was a guest speaker that day. He’d prepared some handwritten notes on what he […]

“I‘m just an obnoxious guy who can make it appear charming, that’s what they pay me to do.” - Bill Murray in 1988 as told to T.J. English

“I‘m a coward, I didn’t want to die” – Patty Hearst in 1982, as told to Larry Grobel. Larry Grobel told us the story about a time back in the early 80s when he borrowed a swimsuit at the Playboy mansion. It seems that back then, Hugh Hefner kept spare trunks at the ready whenever his guests […]

“I don’t know what the ‘big time’ is” – Tom Waits in 1988 as told to Chris Roberts Imagine what would happen if you sat down on a couch next to Tom Waits? Here’s the tape. Watch the animated version of this episode from our series with PBS Digital Studios: blankonblank.org/tom-waits

“I keep my mouth shut now. I’ve turned into a professional coward.” – Hunter S. Thompson in 1967 with Studs Terkel. The interview was recorded shortly after the release of Thompson’s book, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga. He spent more than a year living, drinking and riding with the Hells Angels up and down the […]

“I carried a knife taped to my leg. I never used it but it was there.” – Dustin Hoffman in 1971. Listening to this interview tape from the Pacifica Radio Archives, we were drawn to this idea of the struggles that pop up between different generations and the internal questions one confronts as he or […]

"I have no faith at all. I only hold convictions." - Ayn Rand in 1959, as told to Mike Wallace. The author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead explains what love and marriage really mean.

"I was young for my age. Not as naïve as they expected. I don't know why I seem to bring that out in people." - Joni Mitchell in 1986, as told to Joe Smith in a previously unheard interview.

"I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good." - John Coltrane in one of his final interviews. From the Pacifica Radio Archives

"If you have to ask yourself whether or not you love a girl or you love a boy, forget it. You don't." - Ray Bradbury, as told to two college students in 1972

"Mama just always said, 'you be what you are and you don’t have to worry about nothing.'" - Dolly Parton in 1978, as told to Lawrence Grobel in an interview for Playboy magazine