Death, Sex & Money - Four Interviews and a Funeral
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Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 December 2023
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When we heard that Death, Sex, & Money was coming to an end at WNYC, we decided there was only one thing to do: throw ourselves an in-person goodbye celebration. In this week’s episode, you’ll hear audio from “Four Interviews and a Funeral,” a show we hosted at Caveat in Manhattan. In it, Anna talks to past guests, like comedian Chris Gethard, Lawrence and Ronnine Bartley, mover Adonis Williams, and NYC’s subway voice, Bernie Wagenblast about their experiences with endings and life transitions. Also, actress Ellen Burstyn reads a poem, Anna gives a eulogy for the show, and The Outer Borough Brass Band plays us home.
Read more about the event in The New Yorker here, and sign up for Anna’s new newsletter where you can read her weekly musings, hear from other listeners, and get updates about the future of the show.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Every year, everything in my lifetime leads back to this. |
| 0:07.3 | The fires and the Black River of Loss, whose other side is salvation, |
| 0:15.8 | whose meaning none of us will ever know. |
| 0:19.2 | That's Ellen Burstyn, reading on stage in New York City, the Mary Oliver poem in Blackwater Woods. |
| 0:26.7 | You may know that Ellen's been a repeat guest on our podcast going back to our first year in 2014, |
| 0:32.9 | and we asked her to be a part of celebrating our show at a live event on New York City's Lower East Side just a few weeks ago. |
| 0:41.6 | Ellen is 91, and as she read, I held the microphone for her so she could hold the folder in which she'd brought the printed out poem. |
| 0:49.9 | And as she finished these lines, she stared into my eyes. |
| 0:54.0 | To live in this world, you must be able to do three things. |
| 1:00.0 | To love what is mortal. |
| 1:04.0 | To hold it against your bones, knowing your very life depends on it. And when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. |
| 1:21.7 | I'm Anna Sale, and this is the final death, sex, and money episode for us of 2023, |
| 1:30.2 | and the last episode from WNYC. |
| 1:33.7 | We told you a few months ago that our team learned that due to budget cuts, |
| 1:38.1 | WNYC needed to find a new partner or production home for our show, |
| 1:42.1 | and that our current arrangement would come to an end at the end of this calendar year. |
| 1:46.7 | And here we are. |
| 1:48.9 | And I will tell you, we have felt enveloped by appreciation and love from so many people as we face this transition. |
| 1:57.8 | From listeners, former guests, podcast industry colleagues, and also from potential |
| 2:03.1 | new partners, there may yet be more life in this podcast, but I don't have anything |
| 2:09.9 | official to announce just yet, which is annoying. Trust me, I know. I would also love to know |
| 2:17.3 | what is going to happen. But for now, |
... |
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