This is our first show of the new year, 2025, a year many of us are approaching with some trepidation, if not outright dread. When I sat down to plan the episode, I was feeling uninspired and rudderless, not knowing how to continue, or even if I should continue. But in the words of Samuel Beckett: “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” Which can be taken as an expression of resilience in the face of adversity. Or, and I think this closer to my case, a bow to inertia. Hey, we’ve come this far. Why stop now?
So in that light, I reviewed the interviews I did in 2024, listening back to last year’s guests, all people I enjoyed conversing with, and engaging with their work. That gave me the idea of taking just a few minutes from the start of each interviews and meshing them all together for today’s episode. Kind of Terry Gross meets William S. Burroughs. And we do it chronologically, from our first interview last January to our last interview of 2024, just two weeks ago. Here’s the guest list, in order of appearance – Stephen O’ Donnell, Kathleen McFall and Clark Hays, Rob McIntyre and Elsa Rogers, Rene Denfeld, Miriam Gershow, Daniel A. Olivas, Justin Taylor, Kimberly King Parsons, David Ciminello, Sidney Morrison, Suzy Vitello, Scott Nadelson, Dian Greenwood, Michael Keefe, Penny Allen, and Nui Wilson, Frances Lu Pai Ippolito, and Gigi Little.
So, in the hope that all of us find a reason to go on, and have a heck of a year, in spite of the challenges, we bring you an episode we’re calling Beginnings, which, wouldn’t you know, is already in progress.
- KBOO