The Lives They're Living

Ben Yagoda
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Semiweekly

Profiling remarkable people who are a little more under the radar than they deserve to be. Your host is Ben Yagoda, the author, co-author, or editor of fourteen books, including "Gobsmacked! The British Invasion of American English" (Princeton University Press, 2024) and the novel "Alias O. Henry" (Paul Dry Books, 2025). For each episode, Ben talks to someone who is an expert on and fascinated by the subject at hand.

  1. 6d ago

    Carl Freedman on Samuel R. Delany

    Carl Freedman is the William A. Read Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Louisiana State University and the author of many books, including The Age of Nixon: A Study in Cultural Power; The Incomplete Projects: Marxism, Modernity, and the Politics of Culture; and Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema: Studies in Ford, Wilder, Coppola, Scorsese, and Others. As you can see, his interests range widely but one of the main ones through the years has been science fiction. In addition to his book Critical Theory and Science Fiction, he has written many articles on the subject and edited collections of interviews with several sci-fi writers, including the subject of this episode, Samuel R. "Chip" Delany. Delany was born in 1942 and started publishing at the age of 20. He is a prolific author in many genres, most frequently science fiction--and he was named a Grand Master of the form in 2013. Among his books mentioned in this episode are Babel-17; Dhalgren; Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand; Times Square Red, Times Square Blue; Sods and Surds; and Of Solids and Surds. Delany's website. Delany's Facebook page. Carl Freedman's website. His Facebook page. Following up on a couple of points mentioned in the podcast, Delany's aunts Sadie (born 1889) and Bessie (born 1891) were first the subjects of a magazine article in 1991, then a book called Having Our Say in 1993, and then a Broadways play (also called Having Our Say) in 1995. Green's Dictionary of Slang lists the first appearance in print of the following terms: Horse opera: 1927Soap opera: 1939Space opera: 1949 Photo of Delany by Delany.

    Carl Freedman on Samuel R. Delany

  2. Aug 10

    Chris Whipple on Harry Benson

    A former Life magazine correspondent and CBS 60 Minutes producer, Chris Whipple is the author of Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History' which was an instant top-ten New York Times bestseller. His previous best-selling books include The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency; The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future; and The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House. His Vanity Fair cover story on the Trump White House created headlines worldwide. His subject is the legendary photographer Harry Benson. Harry Benson's website. Harry Benson: Shoot First documentary. Chris Whipple's website.  The image is Harry Benson's photograph of the Beatles pillow-fighting in a Paris hotel room in 1964. For information on licensing it and other Benson photos, visit his website.

    Chris Whipple on Harry Benson

  3. Jul 20

    Tom Reney on Charlie Musselwhite

    Tom Reney was honored by the Jazz Journalists Association with the Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Career Excellence in Broadcasting in 2019. In addition to hosting Jazz à la Mode since 1984,  Tom writes the Corner Pocket music blog at tomreney.com and hosts the Jazz Beat podcast at New England Public Media. He began working in jazz radio in 1977 at WCUW, a community-licensed radio station in Worcester, Massachusetts. Tom holds a bachelor's degree from UMass Amherst, where he majored in English and African American Studies. Tom's website Charlie Musselwhite's website 2022 profile of Charlie in Delta Magazine "Moment of Charlie Musselwhite" is from the promotional video for his 2025 album "Look Out Highway" The photo is of Charlie at age 18. You can definitely feel the Robert Mitchum vibe.

    Tom Reney on Charlie Musselwhite

  4. Jul 9

    Jack Lynch on Bryan Garner

    Jack Lynch is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Rutgers/Newark.  In addition to many scholarly publications, focusing on 18th century British literature, notably Samuel Johnson, he has written widely and brilliantly for a general audience, in books including:  Becoming Shakespeare: The Unlikely Afterlife That Turned a Provincial Playwright into the Bard; You Could Look It Up: The Reference Shelf From Ancient Babylon to Wikipedia; and The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of 'Proper' English, from Shakespeare to South Park. He’s currently working on a book about the greatest reference book, and perhaps the greatest book, of all time, the Oxford English Dictionary. Bryan Garner's website Jack Lynch's website David Foster Wallace's essay on Garner, "Authority and American Usage" The photo is of a Bryan Garner bobblehead

    Jack Lynch on Bryan Garner

  5. Jun 3

    Gene Seymour on Ron Carter

    Gene Seymour, a Connecticut native, spent years working for big-city newspapers as a reporter and movie and jazz critic—including at the Philadelphia Daily News, where we first crossed paths. He's the author of a young adult history, Jazz, the Great American Art. These days, he lives in Philadelphia and contributes mightily on a remarkable range of subjects from baseball to crime novels and many steps in between to The Nation, Bookforum, CNN. com, The New Republic, the Washington Post, and others. His excellent Substack is That Gene Seymour. Ron Carter, the great bassist, was born in 1937, and you would be hard-pressed to find a notable jazz artist from the 1960s to the present he did not play with. These days he leads several groups and has an active touring schedule, which you can learn about at his website. I recommend following him on Facebook, YouTube, and virtually every other platform you happen to find yourself on.  Photo: Ron Carter in 2009. Credit: Marek Lazarski

    Gene Seymour on Ron Carter

  6. May 5

    Brian Cullman on Peter Stampfel

    Brian Cullman is a writer and musician based in New York and in France.  He has written extensively for The Paris Review, Antaeus, Rolling Stone, and the Village Voice and has won the ASCAP/Deems Taylor award for excellence in music journalism three times. He has three solo albums on Sunnyside and is currently a member of Lisbon-based group Rua Das Pretas. His new book is called How to Prepare for the Past: Travels In Music and Time.   The book is a memoir composed of vignettes, many about Brian’s encounters and relationships with fascinating people, from the 1960s on, most of them musicians and most of them no longer with us. The book kicks off with a story about Ed Sullivan, and a few of the other people we meet are Dr. John, Jimi Hendrix, Nick Drake, Paul Bowles, Big Joe Turner, and Sandy Denny. Brian's website Peter Stampfel's website Peter playing "Bird Song" to a clip of Easy Rider, Radio City Music Hall, 2019 "Moment of Peter Stampfel" is from a 2010 interview he did called "Advice to Musicians"

    Brian Cullman on Peter Stampfel

  7. Mar 23

    Jonathan Coleman on Nan and Gay Talese

    Jonathan Coleman's books include AT MOTHER'S REQUEST: A True Story of Money, Murder, and Betrayal (which won an Edgar Allan Poe Award, and was made into a CBS miniseries); EXIT THE RAINMAKER; LONG WAY TO GO: Black and White in America;  and a collaboration with basketball icon and NBA logo Jerry West, WEST BY WEST: My Charmed, Tormented Life.    He began his career in London on Ian Hamilton's legendary journal The New Review, became a book editor at Knopf and Simon & Schuster, then worked as a journalist for CBS News. He has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and many other publications, and is a contributing editor of The Sunday Long Read. He is also an award-winning voiceover talent and recently narrated the audiobook of Ken Auletta's HOLLYWOOD ENDING: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence. For many years, he taught narrative nonfiction writing at the University of Virginia. Jonathan's essay on Jerry West, from The Hedgehog Review. Aaron Latham's 1973 New York Magazine piece on Gay. "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," by Gay Talese, originally published in 1966 in Esquire. "Your moment of Nan Talese" source is a Library of America conversation with her author Margaret Atwood.  Photo is of the Taleses' wedding day in Rome, 1959. Credit: Elio Cardone.

    Jonathan Coleman on Nan and Gay Talese

  8. Mar 4

    Jane Leavy on Sandy Koufax

    Jane Leavy grew up on Long Island, where she pitched briefly and poorly for the Blue Jays of the Roslyn Long Island Little League. She worshipped Mickey Mantle from the second-floor ballroom in the Concourse Plaza Hotel, up the street from Yankee Stadium, where her grandmother’s synagogue held services on the High Holidays.   She was a staff writer at The Washington Post from 1979 to 1988, covering baseball, tennis, and the Olympics for the sports section and writing profiles for  the Style section about sports, politics, and pop culture, including profiles of comic Danny Kaye, Jane Fonda, National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, and basketballer Muggsy Bogues, which was longer than he is tall.   Then she moved to writing books, beginning with Squeeze Play, which Entertainment Weekly called “the best novel ever written about baseball”. Then she wrote the national bestsellers The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created, The Last Boy Book: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood , Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy and now Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It.   Jane's website Sandy Koufax career statistics Vin Scully's call of the final inning of Koufax's 1965 perfect game Koufax's 2022 speech at the unveiling of his statue outside Dodgers Stadium The photograph shows Koufax after his perfect game--the four balls he's holding in his very large hands represent his four no-hitters. Credit: Bettmann

    Jane Leavy on Sandy Koufax
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About

Profiling remarkable people who are a little more under the radar than they deserve to be. Your host is Ben Yagoda, the author, co-author, or editor of fourteen books, including "Gobsmacked! The British Invasion of American English" (Princeton University Press, 2024) and the novel "Alias O. Henry" (Paul Dry Books, 2025). For each episode, Ben talks to someone who is an expert on and fascinated by the subject at hand.

Information

  • Creator
    Ben Yagoda
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    38
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Ben Yagoda
  • Show Website
    The Lives They're Living

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