AUTHOR: Rudy Ruiz | DATES: May 20, May 27, June 3 | TIME: 6 pm each day In this three-part training, Rudy Ruiz, addresses the art of quality visual instruction. From fundamental principles, to teaching strategies, to finding a teaching gig, Rudy addresses all aspects of this topic over three one-hour webinars.

Pacific Crest is a recognized leader in the marching arts community. We are here today because of supporters like you. We will survive these harsh times, and we are eager to build on 2019’s historic success. But we need your help to get there. When DCI cancelled the 2020 season, we got right to work: […]

AUTHOR: Mark Kveton | DATES: Monday - Friday, June 22 -26 | TIME: 2 - 4:30 pm each day This five-day course is tailored for any student looking to hone and enhance their leadership skills -- open to current as well as prospective leaders, including drum majors, section leaders, and color guard captains.

Arturo Castro Drum Major Camp Instructor ARTURO CASTRO joined the Pacific Crest family in 2012 as a member of the color guard section. After aging out, he served the Pacific Crest admin team from 2015 to 2018. In addition to working with Pacific Crest’s administrative team, Arturo has previously worked as a staff clinician for […]

Eric Briggs Drum Major Camp Instructor ERIC BRIGGS began playing percussion at an early age, continuing his music education while attending Hoover High School in Glendale, CA. During his time at Hoover he performed in multiple ensembles including the marching band, concert band, symphonic orchestra, and jazz band. While in the marching band he played […]

Joshua-Guerrero Martinez Drum Major Camp Instructor JOSHUA ADAM has been a part of the percussion community since 2001. He is currently the Captain Head at West Covina High School, and has been a musician with the Disneyland Resort since 2011. His marching experience is with Pacific Crest Drum and Bugle Corps in 2008 & 2009 […]

A Valentine's day playlist curated with LOVE. Later in the podcast is a tribute to the late Lyle Mays.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album 
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstraong ~ Love Is Here To Stay ~ Best of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
Jimmy Greene ~ Love In Action ~ Mission Statement
Atla and Matt Dechamplain ~ I Can't Believe You Are In Love With Me ~ Pause
Toots Theielmans ~ Hello Young Lovers ~ Only Trust Your Heart
Organissimo ~ All You Need Is Love ~ B3tles: A Soulful Tribute to the Fab Four
Robert Glasper ~ All Matter ~ Double Booked
Gregory Porter ~ L-O-V-E ~ Nat King Cole & Me
Lyle Mays ~ Highland Aire ~ Lyle Mays
Lyle Mays ~ Mirror of the Heart ~ Lyle Mays
Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays ~ It's For You ~ As Falls Witchita, So Falls Witchita Falls
Louis Armstrong ~ West End Blues ~ This is Jazz

This week's show begins with an interview with vocalist and trumpeter Leala Cyr. The episode concludes with vibes by Burton, including collaborations with Chick and others. In between are some great tracks by Roberta Flack, Bessie Smith, Mehldau, Ponty and others.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album
Leala Cyr ~ The Secret ~ First Instinct
Leala Cyr ~ Canyon View ~ First Instinct
Roberta Flack ~ Compared To What ~ First Take
Jeff Fuller & Friends ~ Cry Me a River ~ Happenstance
Jen Allen ~ Blanket Statement ~ Blanket Statement
Jean-Luc Ponty ~ King Kong ~ King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the music of Frank Zappa
Brad Mehldau ~ St. Mark is Howling in the City of Light ~ Finding Gabriel
Bessie Smith ~ Backwater Blues ~ Best of Bessie Smith
Chick Corea and Gary Burton ~ Eleanor Rigby ~ Hot House
Gary Burton ~ Question and Answer ~ Like Minds
Gary Burton ~ Gorgeous ~ Generations

We begin this episode with new music; first from our Hartford cats and then from more nationally known jazz artists. Finally the set ends with classic jazz from Hancock and Miles.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album
The New Mosaic ~ Out Of Body ~ single
Jen Allen ~ Begin Again ~ Sifting Grace
Jen Allen ~ Prickly Pear ~ Sifting Grace
Mike Casey ~ Unforgettable ~ single
Christopher Hollyday ~ Dialogue ~ Dialogue
Pat Metheny ~ Everything Explained ~ From This Place
Kenny Barron, Dave Holland Trio ~ Porto Alegre ~ Without Deception
Herbie Hancock ~ Maiden Voyage ~ Maiden Voyage
Herbie Hancock ~ Tell Me A Bedtime Story ~ Fat Albert Rotunda
Herbie Hancock ~ Ostinato (Suite for Angela) ~ Mandishi
Miles Davis ~ Dear Old Stockholm ~ Round About Midnight

This episode begins with tunes that can be associated with a couple of political campaigns. Don't worry, I don't get too political on you. Everyone loves a Miles set, and that is what comes next. Then a set of "Moments"; Moments Notice, Stolen Moments, Idle Moments and Bright Moments. Finally something new from a group called Idle Hands, and an album Solid Moments.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album 
Curtis Mayfield ~ Move On Up (extended version) ~ Curtis
Bill Frisell ~ Revolution ~ all we are saying...
Miles Davis ~ Tutu ~ Tutu
Miles Davis ~ Footprints ~ Miles Davis: Birth of the cool (soundtrack)
Miles Davis ~ Round Midnight ~ Round About Midnight
John Coltrane ~ Moments Notice ~ Blue Train
Oliver Nelson ~ Stolen Moments ~ Blues and the Abstract Truth
Blue Note 7 ~ Idle Moments ~ Mosaic: A Celebration of Blue Note
Rahsaan Roland Kirk ~ Bright Moments ~ Bright Moments
IdleHands ~ Barrelling Through ~ Solid Moments

Except for the opening track (Feel the Bern - Mike Casey), this podcast is all McCoy Tyner. We pay tribute to this iconic jazz pianist that passed away last week. Tyner's influence on modern jazz cannot be overstated. His contribution to this art form will be an indelible part of jazz history.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album 
Mike Casey ~ Feel The Bern ~ single
McCoy Tyner Trio ~ Flying High ~ Infinity
McCoy Tyner Trio featuring Michael Brecker ~ Impressions ~ Infinity
McCoy Tyner ~ Song for My Lady ~ Song for My Lady
McCoy Tyner ~ T 'n A Blues ~ Today and Tomorrow
McCoy Tyner ~ Passion Dance ~ The Real McCoy
McCoy Tyner ~ Sahara ~ Sahara
McCoy Tyner ~ Alone Together ~ Illuminations
McCoy Tyner ~ My Favorite Things ~ Echoes from a Friend
McCoy Tyner ~ Fly With the Wind ~ Fly With the Wind
McCoy Tyner ~ Peresina ~ Expansions

We may be stuck at home ALONE, but TOGETHER through our common love of jazz music, we can will get through this. For many of us music sustains our spirit and enhances our lives. My hope is that this podcast will help to keep you "In The Groove", hip you to new music, and give you comfort with our great jazz standards.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album 
McCoy Tyner ~ Alone Together ~ Illuminations
Jimmy Greene ~ Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most ~ Introducing Jimmy Greene
Ahmad Jamal ~ Stolen Moments ~ The Awakening
Bill Evans Trio ~ Milestones ~ Waltz for Debby
Billy Childs feat. Lisa Fischer ~ Map to the Treasure ~ Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro (2014)
Kenny Barron & Dave Holland Trio (feat. Johnathan Blake) ~ I Remeber When ~ Without Deception
Hudson (feat. Dejohnette, Grenadier, Medeski, Scofield) ~ Tony Then Jack ~ Hudson

This is part 2 of the last WWUH radio show before temporarily shuttering for COVID-19. I thought it appropriate to feature musicians that have contributed so much to the Hartford jazz scene. I didn't have time to get to everyone, but I hope this sampling of local music plays to the HARTstrings of In The Groove Listeners here and all over the world.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album
Jen Allen ~ Begin Again ~ Sifting Grace
Jen Allen ~ Climbing Ivy ~ Sifting Grace
Kris Allen ~ Lowborn ~ Beloved
The Curtis Brothers ~ Staircase of Mount Meru ~ Algorithm
Orice Jenkins ~ Nature Boy ~ Centennial Cole
New England Jazz Ensemble ~ Wolves ~ Peter & The Wolf
Jimmy Greene- ~ So In Love ~ While Looking Up
The New Mosaic ~ Out of Body ~ single
Jonathan Barber ~ Carry On ~ Vision Ahead
Matt Dwonszyk ~ What A Wonderful World ~ Wonderful World
Mike Casey ~ Feel The Bern ~ single
Noah Preminger ~ Halfway To Hartford ~ Genuinity
Andrew Wilcox ~ The Peacocks ~ n/a
Steve Davis ~ Spirit Waltz ~ Live at Smalls

This In The Groove podcast episode pays tribute to those musicians that have passed due to the coronavirus this past week. It is also dedicated everyone who has been impacted by this pandemic. That has been all of us, in one way or other. Stay safe everyone. That means stay indoors, keep your distance, wash hands, wear face masks. Let the power of music and art help get us through this ordeal.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album
Steve Davis ~ Lovely Day ~ Outlook
The Marsalis Family ~ Sultry Serenade ~ Jazz Celebration
Wallace Roney ~ Around and Through ~ A Place in Time
Bucky Pizzarelli ~ All of Me ~ 5 for Freddie
BIll Withers ~ Lean on Me ~ single
Jimmy Greene ~ No Words ~ While Looking Up
Michael Brecker ~ African Skies ~ Tales From the Hudson
McCoy Tyner Trio (featuring Michael Brecker)  ~ Impressions ~ Infinity 

Hope y'all are staying safe, sheltered at home and observing all of CDC guidance during these times. An eclectic set this week starting with a vocal set, then a set of rock covers and some jazz classics.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album
Atla DeChamplain ~ Pause ~ Pause
Jazzmeia Horn ~ Lift Every Voice and Sing / Moanin’ (Medley) ~ A Social Call
Snarky Puppy ~ Sing to the Moon (feat. Laura Mvula & Michelle Willis) ~ Family Dinner, Vol. 2
Pat Metheny ~ Sixty-Six ~ From This Place
Gerald Cleaver ~ Detroit (Keep It In Mind) ~ Detroit
The Bad Plus ~ Everybody Wants To Rule The World ~ Prog
The Bad Plus ~ Smells Like Teen Spirit ~ These Are The Vistas
The Bad Plus ~ Long Distance Runaround ~ For All I Care (feat. Wendy Lewis)
Chick Corea ~ Straight Up and Down ~ Inner Space
Return To Forever ~ Light As a Feather ~ Light As A Feather

This podcast episode features the New England Jazz Ensemble performing a jazzed up arrangement of Sergei Prokofiev's, Peter and the Wolf. Arranged by Walt Gwardyak with a hip "jazzbretto" (narration) by Giacomo Gates. Following is new music from Zenon, Metheny and a beautiful duet of Metheny and Haden. 

Playlist
New England Jazz Ensemble ~ Peter & The Wolf ~ Peter & The Wolf
Miguel Zenon ~ Las Caras Lindas ~ Sonero (the Music of Ismael Rivera)
Pat Metheny ~ Pathmaker ~ From This Place
Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny ~ The Moon is a Harsh Witness ~ Beyond the Missouri Sky

From my recent radio broadcast. No real theme, just music for you jazz fans to enjoy. Stay safe.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album
Chick Corea ~ The One Step ~ Friends
Return to Forever ~ No Mystery (feat. Chick Corea) ~ No Mystery
Brandee Younger ~ Soul Awakening ~ Soul Awakening
Onaje Allan Gumbs ~ What You Won't Do for Love ~ Just Like Yesterday
Avery Sharpe Trio ~ First Time We Met ~ Autumn Moonlight
McCoy Tyner ~ Talk Spirit, Walk Spirit ~ Quartet
Charles Mingus ~ Remembering Rockefeller At Attica ~ Changes One
Charles Mingus ~ Better git hit in your soul ~ Pithencanthropus Erectus
John McLaughlin ~ Extrapolation ~ Extrapolation
John McLaughlin ~ It's Funny ~ Extrapolation

A mix of jazz music for a beautiful spring day. New music from Connecticut based artists featured within (Escoffery, Barber, Envisage). Please listen for a special message at the end of this episode.

Playlist
Artist ~ Track ~ Album
Sonny Rollins ~ Alfie's Theme ~ Soundtrack from Alfie
Wayne Escoffery ~ Sanctus ~ The Humble Warrior
Jonathan Barber (feat. Vision Ahead) ~ Legacy Holder ~  Single
Jonathan Barber ~ 29 (feat. Vision Ahead) ~ Single
Envisage Collective ~ Step on a Crack ~ Reach Out
McCoy Tyner ~ Mr. P.C. (with John Scofield) ~ Guitars
Roxy Coss ~ Don’t Cross the Coss ~ Quintet
David Liebman ~ Jean Pierre ~ On the Corner Live! The Music of Miles Davis

This is Audiograph — the Bay Area’s sonic signature. Each week, we’ll play you a sound recorded somewhere in the Bay Area. Your job? Listen to the sound in the player above, figure out where it was recorded and what it is, then call to let us know. If you think you can identify this Audiograph sound of the week, call 415-264-7106. Also, tell us where to record next. We’ll give away a KALW t-shirt every week to one lucky caller. We will announce the winner of this week's sound on Thursday during the 5 p.m. broadcast of Crosscurrents . This auditory guessing game is part of our project, Audiograph, a crowd-sourced collaborative radio project mapping the sonic signature of each of the Bay Area’s nine counties. By using the sounds of voices, nature, industry, and music, Audiograph tells the story of where you live, and the people who live there with you.

The Bay Area has a rich pro sports scene with distinctive voices who bring us all the action.

This auditory guessing game is part of Audiograph , a crowd-sourced collaborative radio project mapping the Bay Area’s sonic signature.

We played you this sound and asked you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

This is Audiograph — the Bay Area’s sonic signature. Each week, we’ll play you a sound recorded somewhere in the Bay Area. Your job? Listen to the sound in the player above, figure out where it was recorded and what it is, then call to let us know. If you think you can identify this Audiograph sound of the week, call 415-264-7106. Also, tell us where to record next. We’ll give away a KALW t-shirt every week to one lucky caller. We will announce the winner of this week's sound on Thursday during the 5 p.m. broadcast of Crosscurrents . This auditory guessing game is part of our project, Audiograph, a crowd-sourced collaborative radio project mapping the sonic signature of each of the Bay Area’s nine counties. By using the sounds of voices, nature, industry, and music, Audiograph tells the story of where you live, and the people who live there with you.

Birgit Soyka stands in a large warehouse amongst 68 bird cages, each holding an exotic bird. The walls are covered in photos of brightly colored parrots, and bird-shaped tchotchkes dot the room. She cradles Boogie, a Congo African gray, and a regular guest at the San Francisco Bird Hotel, a spa and resort for birds. “Hi Boogie,” Soyka says; the bird coos in response. As the owner of the San Francisco Bird Hotel, Soyka takes care of Boogie and up to 150 other birds at a time. Her bird-boarding business started back in 2006, when Soyka, who says she’s always loved birds, agreed to “bird sit” a friend’s pet. “It was the beginning of a big snowball and avalanche,” Soyka says. “Out of this one bird came three birds, then 10 birds, then 100 birds.” In 2014, her small business turned into a full-blown bird spa and resort. At the Bird Hotel, all the cages are named after castles around the world; there’s Charlottenburg Palace, Hearst Castle and the Taj Mahal, just to name a few. There are

Jessie Beck, a biologist with Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, is our captain on today ’ s inflatable boat commute to A ñ o Nuevo Island.

Here's the sound we played as a clue. We asked you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

Here's the sound we played as a clue. We asked you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it. Listen above for the full answer.

Corgi Con is a semi-annual celebration of short, sausage-shaped dogs called Corgis. Hundreds of dogs and their families descend on Ocean Beach for a day of events and festivities.

Buried deep in Stanford Hospital is a network that’s a little more Jules Verne than Silicon Valley.

Today on Crosscurrents: How one Bay Area school district is offering families extra support so kids get to school on time every day. Inside Real Guitars, the oldest vintage guitar shop in the city.

Alemany Farmers Market started during WWII to support rural farms near San Francisco. Throughout the market’s evolution, its maintained modest prices, diverse customers, and a “local first” attitude towards selling produce. You’ll find an assortment of Latin and Southeast Asian ingredients unlike anywhere else, and it’s open every Saturday, all year long.

On a fall evening at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto — better known as “The Farm” — college-football rivals UC Berkeley and Stanford meet for their annual showdown at the 120th “Big Game.” The stadium is divided in half, with Cal fans in blue and gold on one side, and Stanford in Cardinal red on the other. Chants and cheers can be heard throughout the crowd. The band always wins Even with all the action taking place on the field, it is hard not to notice the full concert going on by the end-zone stands. There are over 100 people playing instruments like tubas, flutes and marching drums. It’s none other than the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band. “We have a fun saying in the band, that the band always wins. So even when the football team doesn’t win, or the volleyball team doesn’t win or whatever athletic event we are at ... the band always wins,” says public relations director and Stanford senior Mireille Bejjani , better know by her band name “Fan.” Today, the band has

All week long, we played this sound and asked you to guess what exactly it was and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

This is Audiograph — the Bay Area’s sonic signature. We’ll play you a sound recorded somewhere in the Bay Area. Your job? Listen to the sound in the player above, figure out where it was recorded and what it is, then call to let us know. If you think you can identify this Audiograph sound of the week, call 415-264-7106. Also, tell us where to record next. We’ll give away a KALW t-shirt every week to one lucky caller. We will announce the winner of this week's sound on Thursday during the 5 p.m. broadcast of Crosscurrents . This auditory guessing game is part of our project, Audiograph, a crowd-sourced collaborative radio project mapping the sonic signature of each of the Bay Area’s nine counties. By using the sounds of voices, nature, industry, and music, Audiograph tells the story of where you live, and the people who live there with you.

Second Fridays at the Legionnaire Saloon in downtown Oakland are not just any bar night. It feels more like a backyard party or a family reunion.

I’ve moved 16 times. So when I settled in San Jose, I thought I could finally get some real Vietnamese food. But where to go? A friend brought me to the Grand Century Mall food court in East San Jose to catch up over bánh xèo . It had been years since I’d torn through this sizzling crepe of coconut cream and rice flour batter. Shrimp, slivers of pork, mint, and bean sprouts spilled out the lacy edges of a golden crisp semicircle. It tasted like home. I came back to the mall recently to figure out if there were other people who felt the same way I did. I met Emily Nguyễn, who was eating with friend at one of the laminate tables. She’s in her 40s and came to San Jose as a teenager. “When you migrate to a new country, everything seems strange at the beginning. And at the time we didn’t have a lot of Asian food or shopping malls,” she says. “That’s one of the main reasons why they built this mall for us; to continue that tradition and pass it down to our children.” Emily easily navigates

It’s Friday night on the corner of 16th and Valencia in San Francisco’s Mission District. Shops are closing up and folks that live out here are settling into vacant doorways. The traffic on the street sounds frustrated; revving, waiting, and beeping as the last of the commuters surface from the BART station and breeze by. Most of them don’t even notice a man in a poofy red and white mushroom hat, sorting through a tangled web of colored wires and extension cords.

This story originally aired in 2015. All week long, we've been playing this sound , and asking you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it. This auditory guessing game is part of Audiograph , a crowd-sourced collaborative radio project mapping the Bay Area’s sonic signature. Audiograph tells the story of where you live, and the people who live there with you. Every Thursday, we tell you the story behind our weekly mystery sound on Crosscurrents , and here in weekly blog posts. Listen above for the full answer... SARAH CAHILL: “I heard some music coming from somewhere in the building, and I have to say it was a very sensuous experience wandering around thinking, 'oh its this way,' and making a turn and then encountering a little cage of love birds and a little fountain and a pool. I thought 'oh my god' what is this place?!" Congratulations to this week's winner, Joshua Raoul Brody ! Is there a sound from your life that should be featured on

Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (which owns Google), and Facebook—known in the tech world as the Big Four—are among the largest and most profitable companies in the world, and they’ve been accustomed to the laxest of oversight from Washington. But the climate may have shifted in a significant way. The Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and the House Judiciary Committee are all investigating different aspects of the Big Four; Elizabeth Warren has made breaking up these companies a cornerstone of her Presidential campaign. Sue Halpern, a New Yorker contributor, sounds a cautious note about these developments. Current antitrust law doesn’t well fit the nature of these businesses, and breaking up the companies will not necessarily solve underlying issues, like the lack of privacy law. In a twist, Halpern says, the Big Four and now asking the federal government for more regulation—because, she explains to David Remnick, the companies’ lobbyists can sway Washington more easily than they can influence state governments like California, which just passed a rigorous data-privacy law similar to the European Union’s. “They’re being called to account, they have to do something,” she notes, “but they want to direct the conversation so that, ultimately, they still win.”

As Senator Warren’s presidential candidacy gathers momentum, the Democratic establishment is nervously reckoning with the leftward drift of the party. Warren has a reputation for progressive policy ideas, but she is distancing herself from Bernie Sanders-style democratic socialism. Instead, she is casting herself as a pragmatist who has reasonable plans to reform education, health care, and a financial system that advantages the very rich. Sheelah Kolhatkar joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss Warren's critique of 21st-century capitalism, and voters' concerns about whether she could beat Donald Trump.

The New Yorker contributor Jenna Krajeski recently met with a woman who calls herself Esperanza. In her home country, Esperanza was coerced and threatened into prostitution, and later was trafficked into the United States, where she was subjected to appalling conditions. Esperanza eventually obtained legal help, and applied for something called a T visa. The T visa contains unusual provisions that recognize the unique circumstances of human-trafficking victims in seeking legal status. It has also been a crucial tool to obtaining victims’ coöperation in prosecuting traffickers. The Trump Administration claims to want to fight the problem of human trafficking, but Krajeski notes that its policies have done the opposite: T-visa applicants can now be deported if their applications are rejected. This dramatic change in policy sharply reduced the number of applications from victims seeking help. “If what [the Administration] cares about is putting traffickers in prison, which is what they say they care about, their prosecutions are going down and will go down further,” Martina Vandenberg, the president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center, says. “Trafficking victims under the circumstances can’t actually coöperate.”

Sarah Stillman joins Dorothy Wickenden to talk about how the deterrence policies of Republican and Democratic Presidents have failed, and what the Democratic candidates should be saying about how to deal with asylum seekers.

For decades, critical praise for a TV show was that it was “not like TV,” but more like a novel or a movie. That ingrained hierarchy always bugged Emily Nussbaum, who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for her criticism in The New Yorker. She has been compared to Pauline Kael, but Nussbaum—acknowledging the compliment—is quick to point out that she has never written about movies, nor has she wanted to. She was inspired to be a TV critic by “Television Without Pity,” a blog site of passionate, informed fans arguing constantly. In her new book, “I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way through the TV Revolution,” Nussbaum argues that the success of serious antihero dramas like “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad” has led many to devalue mainstays of TV, like comedies and even soap operas. It’s time to stop comparing TV to anything else, she tells David Remnick. 

This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11, the NASA mission that first put men on the moon. In the decades since Apollo 11, the American space program has atrophied. No manned American space mission has left low Earth orbit since 1972. But recent developments in the space programs of other nations, along with new interest in space from private industry, have instigated a new interest in an American space program. The Trump Administration has announced plans to build an American military presence in space, as well as its intentions to send another manned mission to the moon. Rivka Galchen joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss what’s next in outer space.

It’s hard to recall a newly elected freshman representative to Congress who has made a bigger impact than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her primary victory for New York’s Fourteenth District seat—as a young woman of color beating out a long-established white male incumbent—was big news, and Ocasio-Cortez has been generating headlines almost daily ever since. Practically the day she took her seat in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez became the hero of the left wing of the Democrats and a favored villain of Fox News and the right. She battled Nancy Pelosi to make the Green New Deal a priority, and has been involved with a movement to launch primary challenges against centrist or right-leaning Democrats. Like Bernie Sanders, she embraces the label of democratic socialism and supports free college education for all Americans. She has called for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She joined David Remnick in the New Yorker Radio Hour studio on July 5th, just after her trip to the border to examine migrant-detention facilities. Remnick and Ocasio-Cortez spoke about why she courted controversy by referring to some facilities as “concentration camps”; why she thinks the Department of Homeland Security is irredeemable; and whether Joe Biden is qualified to be President, given his comments about colleagues who supported forms of segregation. “Issues of race and gender are not extra-credit points in being a good Democrat,” she says. “They are a core part of the ... competencies that a President needs. . . . Where are you on understanding the people that live in this country?”

Since 1969, when an estimated six hundred million people around the world watched two astronauts walk on the surface of the moon, a significant number of people have doubted that it ever took place. A major line of conspiracy theory insists that the footage was faked (and directed by Stanley Kubrick, some have said) in an elaborate hoax engineered by NASA. In 1976, a book called “We Never Went to the Moon” was self-published by a man named Bill Kaysing, a former technical writer at Rocketdyne who claimed to have seen secret government documents. It attracted little notice, but Kaysing continued to make media appearances and fuel doubters into this century. Andrew Marantz, who has written on conspiracy theories for The New Yorker, notes that the moon landing always had skeptics, but the Internet and social media gave them platforms to advance even their most far-fetched views. Marantz sees links between the moon hoax and political conspiracy theories like QAnon. While skepticism toward government claims may be justified, conspiracy theories that dispute the most basic accounts of truth erode the functioning of a democracy, Marantz thinks; they lead to a totalitarian state where, in the words of Hannah Arendt, “everything was possible and ... nothing was true.” 

In June, protests erupted in Hong Kong over a proposed bill that could have allowed the Chinese government to prosecute political dissidents living in Hong Kong. This past Sunday, police in the city fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, and a group of masked men attacked protesters and civilians at a Hong Kong train station. The protests are only the latest expression of increasing tension between Hong Kong, which has been a special administrative region since 1997, and the People’s Republic of China. Jiayang Fan joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss that rancorous relationship, and whether Beijing might order a military crackdown.

Tana French was an actor in her thirties when she sat down to write about a mystery that took the lives of two children, which became the global blockbuster “In the Woods.” With her subsequent books about the Dublin Murder Squad, French became known as “the queen of Irish crime fiction”—despite having been born in the United States. French’s latest book, “The Witch Elm,” departs from her line of police procedurals: the narrator is a civilian, a happy-go-lucky young man named Toby whose life is turned upside down when he is attacked during a burglary. Although the book involves a murder, “The core story arc is not the murder and the solution,” French tells Alexandra Schwartz. “The core story arc is Toby going from this golden boy [with] his happy life to somebody who’s had that shattered. . . . Where will this crisis take him?” Though known as a literary mystery writer, French acknowledges that some of her fans have found the plot frustrating. “If you’re coming to this book expecting a straight-up crime novel . . . you are going to be a hundred pages in [asking], ‘Where’s my murder?’ ” 

In May, the Colorado senator Michael Bennet became the nineteenth Democrat to announce that he was running for the Party’s Presidential nomination. He is among the most experienced and respected candidates: prior to his decade as a Democratic senator from a purple state, he was the chief of staff to the governor, and, before that, the superintendent of Denver Public Schools. He is the kind of moderate many voters say that they’re seeking. Still, Bennet has struggled to make his voice heard when much of the attention is being lavished on the progressives in the race. Senator Bennet joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss why he is running for President, the trials of being a political underdog, and his ideas about how to restore America in an age of broken politics.