It’s now just five days till our opening gala, “Plays with Matches”, and now seems a good time to bring all our hosts and special guests together. So, without further ado…
Meet Andy Borowitz, our host, talking here about sex education and the difference between “continuously” and “continually” at the 92nd Street Y:
“I guess I failed to ask a key follow-up question because I came away from this explanation thinking that all this transpired between a man and a woman while the couple was asleep. And it wasn’t until years later that I realised that one of you has to be awake…”
Andy will be joined by Hollywood superstar Uma Thurman, who hosts our literary quiz, “The Tip of My Tongue”. Here’s Uma sharing a $5 milkshake with John Travolta in 1994’s Pulp Fiction.
“I’ll tell you what. I’m gonna go to the bathroom and powder my nose. You sit here and think of something to say…”
Storytelling collective The Moth has featured writer Adam Gopnik as a guest several times. Here he is in 2006 on how he learned to LOL.
“…and I thought to myself, This is the real nature of every communication between parent and child: we send them lots of love; they laugh out loud at us and we don’t even know they’re doing it…”
Author and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean talks here about the process of being fictionalised in the movie adaptation of her book The Orchid Thief at the Texas Book Festival:
“I remember at the time saying to a friend, If they make this into a movie, there’s no doubt that they’ll add sex and drugs and car crashes. I mean, how can they not? It’s Hollywood!”
Next up, this is the historian Simon Winchester at TEDxEast, speaking about The Men Who United the States, and in particular the curious case of Clarence King.
“There are 18 towns called Paradise in this country, stretching from Paradise, close to Intercourse, Pennsylvania, which of course always excites people, to a retirement community outside Sacramento…”
Finally, the House of SpeakEasy’s first musical guest is the singer-songwriter Dar Williams. Here she is in 2011 being interviewed by Larry Groce of Mountain Stage about her greatest hits compilation, Many Great Companions. It’s interspersed with some live performances, too.
“Singer-songwriterdom was more of an evolution than something that required a lot of fits and starts…”
We hope you enjoy meeting them all next week!
