62. Mixtape #3 – a Soupçon of Ornithology

Think Again - a Big Think Podcast

Big Think / Panoply

Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 594 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2016

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Big Think launched in 2008 as a "YouTube for intellectuals." Since then, it has produced over 10,000 short-form video interviews with many of the most influential and creative thinkers of our time. In 2014, the podcast SERIAL burst on the scene and Apple put a "podcasts" app in the iPhone's OS, and suddenly podcasting, which had existed for over a decade, was widely considered to have entered its Golden Age (wonder how all the veteran podcasters felt about that...). So Big Think decided it might be a good time to start a podcast, too––to find its voice in this newly energized space. Jason Gots (who had been a writer and editor there since 2010), more or less leapt out of his chair at the meeting where this was announced and volunteered to create and host it. Thus THINK AGAIN - A BIG THINK PODCAST was born. Big Think's videos are bits of "expert wisdom", presented confidently and definitively against a white screen background. With THINK AGAIN, we wanted to revisit these ideas the way the audience encounters them––spontaneously, messily, and often out of context. We wanted to bring the experts to that state some thinkers call "beginner's mind" and see what would happen. The format: Jason sits down with artists, scientists, historians––all accomplished experts in their fields. They chat a bit about the guest's work. Then, they watch three surprise Big Think interview clips (chosen by the video producers), emailed to Jason just before the interview, and discuss them. And the conversation goes where it goes. Some amazing moments have happened this past year––fun, profound, profoundly painful––we're stepping back and taking stock. This, the third of our year one mixtapes, features direct, powerful, and hilarious conversations with actor Ethan Hawke, comedians P.F. Tompkins and Chris Gethard, and musician Amanda Palmer. Surprise clips in this episode: Andrew Keen on the cultural impact of the internet, Bill Nye on infinity, and Baratunde Thurston on information overabundance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, I'm Jason Gautz and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.
0:09.0	Since 2008, Big Think has been sharing big ideas and little doses from some of the most creative thinkers in the world.
0:17.0	On the Think Again podcast, we step outside of our comfort zone, surprising myself and my guests with unexpected interview clips from Big Think's archives, ideas that we didn't necessarily come here prepared to discuss. This is the third of three so far, mixed tapes of my favorite moments
0:38.3	from the first year of the show.
0:40.3	We're 62 episodes deep, and it's a good time for us to,
0:45.3	for me, particularly to take a look back
0:47.3	at where we started and what's happened along the way.
0:51.3	Take stock before we move into this next season of the show.
0:56.5	So the first clip I want to share with you today is in every show, in the beginning of the show,
1:02.0	I sit down and just talk about whatever project the guest is currently working on,
1:07.3	and I try to prepare some questions about their life and work that are going to take us in interesting directions.
1:12.6	This clip is from Ethan Hawke, the actor and director and writer. In this case, it's about a book that he wrote, which I talk about in a minute.
1:23.6	I found this conversation, particularly the part where he talks about fatherhood, extremely moving,
1:28.9	personally. And just in general, I found him to be an incredibly warm and engaged, passionate
1:36.0	presence. I really enjoyed this conversation. Today I'm very, very psyched to be sitting here with actor, director, and author, Ethan
1:46.0	Hawke. After his breakout roles in Dead Poets Society and Reality Bites, he's followed his own
1:51.4	path as an artist, starting a theater company, writing two novels, acting in decades-spanning
1:57.2	film productions directed by Richard Linklater, including most recently The Amazing Boyhood.
2:02.7	Now he's about to publish his in just a few days, his first graphic novel, which he wrote with artist Greg Ruth.
2:09.7	Inde, it's called A Story of the Apache Wars, and it is really, really moving and powerful.
2:16.4	Welcome to think again, Ethan. Thanks for having to
2:18.3	here.
	...

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