Rosecrans Baldwin says LA isn't going to prom with you unless you ask it

In this spring episode of Critical Currents, best-selling author and journalist Rosecrans Baldwin joins hosts Dani Taylor and Ziyan Xie for a wide-ranging conversation. Baldwin bridges gaps by recording and retelling stories that bind people within an intersubjective urban horizon. Since moving to Los Angeles, he has become entangled with its contradictions, its mythologies, and its shifting textures. Drawing from his own obsessions and recurring motifs—the city as narrative, as psyche, and as a “city-state,” in his words—Baldwin reflects on the heart of his creative practice: articulating the voices and everyday truths of others. The episode is witty, poignant, chaotic, and sharp, as Baldwin keeps the conversation pulsing with surprising anecdotes and hard-won insights. What emerges is a compelling lens for tuning into, and acting within, our contemporary urban lives—caught, as ever, in the push and pull between disaster and hope.

MENTIONED:

Jonathan Gold (1960-2018)

Jade Chang

Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir by D.J. Waldie

Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles by Rosecrans Baldwin

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Rosecrans Baldwin’s Website

Rosecrans Baldwin’s Instagram

Critical Currents is a collaborative production of the Wende Museum, Thomas Mann House, and dublab, with episodes airing from the heart of Downtown Los Angeles at the dublab studio. New episodes release monthly throughout the spring and fall, available on all podcast platforms. 

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