Interviews with writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters about how they do their work. Hosted by Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, and Evan Ratliff.

Sam Fragoso is a writer, filmmaker, and the host of the podcast Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso.
“We have an hour together. We may not have another. We're here for a brief moment and then, you know, we die. And I want this thing to be as good as it can be. If if it's anything less than that, I'm just not interested. … And that, to me, is why you keep doing it: because that feeling when you really feel like you've put someone's life on the record in a way that is beautiful and painful and idiosyncratic and triumphant … when it goes well, it's like I lost 20 pounds. I am never a nicer or happier person than immediately after a taping. I'm kind of goofy and silly and delirious and grateful to be doing this. Like, so fucking grateful.”
Show notes:

@SamFragoso

samfragoso.com

00:00 Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

08:00 "#1: Matthieu Aikins" (Longform Podcast • Aug 2012)

09:00 "#156: Renata Adler" (Longform Podcast • Sep 2015)

09:00 "#187: Elizabeth Gilbert" (Longform Podcast • Apr 2016)

16:00 "Dr. Ashish Jha" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Mar 2020)

17:00 "Noam Chomsky" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Apr 2020)

21:00 "Margaret Atwood" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Mar 2022)

21:00 "David Byrne" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Mar 2022)

21:00 "Questlove" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Feb 2022)

22:00 "Anna Sale" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Apr 2017)

27:00 "David Sedaris" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Jun 2022)

52:00 WTF with Marc Maron

54:00 "Live Taping: Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso" (On Air Fest • Feb 2023)

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Longform

Episode 525: Sam Fragoso

Eric Lach is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he covers New York. His latest article is “The Mayor and the Con Man.”
“I think about my own trajectory, my little generation of journalists—it was easier to get jobs reporting on national politics than to get a job reporting on something that you could see and go to and that is a really strange thing, the relief and the joy that I feel like when I can just take the subway twenty minutes to go see something interesting for a story or talk to somebody interesting or explore physically and not just feel like I’m making phone calls and Googling. It’s a very different kind of work, but it’s just not something that was super available.”
Show notes:

@Eric Lach

Lach on Longform

Lach’s New Yorker archive

08:00 "Eric Adams Says He Has Swagger. What Else Does He Have?" (New Yorker • Jan 2022)

12:00 "What is Eric Adams’s Plan for the Riker Island Crisis?" (New Yorker • Jan 2022)

13:00 "Eric Adams Wants to Compstat New York City" (New Yorker • May 2021)

15:00 “Eric Adams Rakes in $7.7 Million, With Help From Wealthy Donors” (Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Dana Rubinstein • New York Times • Oct 2021)

24:00 "Why Do So Many New York Politicians Want Paperboy Prince to Hit Them in the Face with a Pie?" (New Yorker • June 2021)

26:00 "“Pretty Much a Big Mess”: One Iowa Caucus Precinct’s Drama-Filled Night" (New Yorker • Feb 2020)

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Episode 524: Eric Lach

Willa Paskin, a former TV critic, is the host of the podcast Decoder Ring.
“I want it to feel like a trap door. When you push on a trap door, there’s like a little spring. If it’s the right idea, you start to look into it, and you’re like, Oh, it’s giving a little.”
Show notes:

@willapaskin

00:00 Paskin's Slate archive

00:00 Paskin's Salon archive

00:00 Paskin's Vulture archive

00:00 Decoder Ring (Slate)

00:00 "The Invention of Hydration" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Apr 2021)

00:00 "Cellino & Barnes, Injury Attorneys, 800-888-8888 " (Decoder Ring • Slate • Dec 2022)

01:00 "The Sideways Effect" (Decoder Ring • Slate • May 2022)

03:00 "Why I Became a TV Critic" (Slate • Jan 2016)

38:00 "The Laff Box" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Apr 2018)

38:00 "The Blue Steak Experiment" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Dec 2020)

40:00 "Chuck E. Cheese Pizza War" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Jun 2019)

40:00 "The Cabbage Patch Kids Riots" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Nov 2020)

42:00 "Selling Out" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Aug 2021)

42:00 "The Sign Painter" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Jun 2021)

53:00 "The Butt and the Bustle" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Nov 2022)

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Episode 523: Willa Paskin

Abraham Josephine Riesman is a journalist who writes often for New York and is the author of True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee. Her second book, Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America, will be published in March.
“You’re sure that there’s a level of unreality, but you’re not sure that it’s all fake. There’s stuff there that seems either plausible or sometimes you go ‘there’s no way you could fake that.’ And sometimes you’re right, and a lot of times you’re somewhere in the middle. It’s not as easily distinguished as saying this is fact and this is fiction, this was scripted and this was improvised, whatever. You can’t make those distinctions easily, and one of the things I sort of hope comes out of the book—if it has any impact at all—is to try to get us past this false binary of true and false.”
Show notes:

@abrahamjoseph

abrahamriesman.com

Riesman on Longform

Riesman’s New York Magazine archive

16:00 "She Was WWE’s First Female Referee. She Says Vince McMahon Raped Her." (New York Magazine • June 2022)

27:00 "There Is No Dignity in This Kind of America" (Jamelle Bouie • New York Times • Feb 2023)

28:00 "My Grandfather the Zionist" (New York Magazine • June 2021)

37:00 "How Los Bros Hernandez Stayed Punk for 40 Years with their Epic Comic-Book Saga, Love and Rockets" (GQ • Nov 2022)

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Episode 522: Abraham Josephine Riesman

Jonah Weiner is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and co-author of the newsletter Blackbird Spyplane.
“It's a version of myself. It's a hyperbolic version of myself. And I think it keeps it fun for me. It doesn't feel like a job. Ideally, it keeps it fun for readers. And I think that there actually is this function where X out of 10 people coming to it, their eyes are going to cross and they're going say, I'm out. No thanks. And that's fine, because the Y out of 10 who stick around feel that much more in on something and it just makes it feel like a funky, special place.”
Show notes:

@jonahweiner

jonahweiner.com

Weiner on Longform

00:00 Weiner on Longform Podcast

01:00 "Prying Eyes" (New Yorker • Oct 2012)

01:00 Blackbird Spyplane (Jonah Weiner and Erin Wylie • Substack)

06:00 "Don’t Take This Hunk at Face Value" (New York Times • Mar 2011)

11:00 "Michael Mann’s Damaged Men" (New York Times Magazine • Jul 2022)

23:00 "Wonders of Tokyo" (Blackbird Spyplane • Nov 2022)

23:00 "It’s-a me, Tokyo!" (Blackbird Spyplane • Nov 2022)

25:00 "Blackpilled Swag" (Blackbird Spyplane • Jan 2023)

31:00 The Warning with Steve Schmidt (Steve Schmidt • Substack)

33:00 Weiner's Rolling Stone archive

34:00 Racket (Matt Taibbi • Substack)

34:00 Glenn Greenwald (Glenn Greenwald • Substack)

36:00 "Bob Odenkirk’s Long Road to Serious Success" (New York Times Magazine • Feb 2022)

36:00 "Seth Rogan and the Secret to Happiness" (New York Times Magazine • Apr 2021)

37:00 The “Blackbird Spyplane” Interview Archive

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Episode 521: Jonah Weiner

Delia Cai is the senior vanities correspondent for Vanity Fair and publishes the media newsletter Deez Links. Her debut novel Central Places is out this week.
“This was in like, 2011, where I think actual journalists were still trying to figure out ‘Is it gross to be a brand?’ And at least in school, they were all about it. They’re like, ‘You need a brand, you need to think about what your niche is going to be, you need to think about engaging your audience.’ We had to make websites, we had to blog, and of course, all of us being college students, we started using our blogs to write about each other. We used Twitter to talk shit about each other in a very thinly veiled way. So really, it was the best training for being online.”
Show notes:

@delia_cai

deliacai.com

Cai’s Vanity Fair archive

Deez Links archive

15:00 Cai’s blog

27:00 "Three Generations of Blue's Clues Hosts Are Still Cool With Being Your Best Friend" (Vanity Fair • Dec 2022)

37:00 "She Invented Adulting. Her Life Fell Apart. She Wants You to Know That’s Okay." (Vanity Fair • May 2022)

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