Breathe. Just Breathe.
Breathe, said the wind. How can I breathe at a time like this,when the air is full of the smokeof burning tires, burning lives? Just breathe, the wind insisted. Easy for you to say, if the weight ofinjustice is not...
Love, Collectivism & Rasquachismo
This morning I emailed the 3 other units in my Harlem brownstone to ask how they were doing, how we can support each other, and what they need. I had been thinking of doing something like that, but it was...
That Time We Watched Brazil in Harlem
“You have to watch ‘Brazil’!” is what a friend told Abram. So, for our final episode we gathered a couple of friends and did just that. Brazil is a British movie made in 1985 that has been described as dystopian fantasy...
S1-E8: “Brazil,” the Movie (Season Finale)
For the last episode of the season, Sam and Abram invited some friends to watch and discuss Brazil, a surreal film that takes on themes of bureaucracy and alienation. Sam and Abram are joined by Patrick G. Williamson, who works...
That Time Abram Asked a Question at Paul’s Event
This podcast was recorded over a year ago as Paul drove a student from his program up to college after the holiday break, and so much has changed since then. I remember hearing about Paul from Alain Berrouet (on the...
S1-E7: If You Want to Go Far, Go Together (Paul Forbes)
In this episode, Sam and Abram chat with Paul Forbes while he drives one of his Expanded Success Initiative students to college. The Expanded Success Initiative, which Paul runs, is a New York City Department of Education program that works...
That Time Abram Created an MLK Episode
Yesterday, on Martin Luther King Day, I listened to our MLK bonus episode for the first time. I had not listened to it before we put it out in public, and since I didn’t record the episode I had no...
That Time Sam Discovered Love
“When I first declared my desire to work in a loving environment, friends acted as though I had truly lost my mind. To them, love and work did not go together. But I was convinced that I would work better in...
S1-E6: All About Love (bell hooks)
When a co-worker cried after a tense phone conversation, Sam started thinking about accountability and human relationships within bureaucracy. Inspired by this incident and by the closeness they’ve built while working on The Radical Bureaucrat, Abram and Sam spend this...