Midday on WNYC

Megan Fontanella, curator of modern art and provenance at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, discusses the Guggenheim’s new exhibit, “Giacometti,” which focuses on the famed 20th-century artist, Alberto Giacometti, and his preoccupation with the human form. This comprehensive exhibition is a collaboration with the Giacometti Foundation in Paris and features works in bronze and oil, as well as plaster sculptures and drawings that have never been shown in the U.S. The Giacometti exhibition is on view through September 12. The Guggenheim has extended hours on Tuesdays, open until 9 pm through September 11. This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson. 

A growing number of foreign-born recruits who joined the United States military through a special program created to recruit immigrant soldiers with valuable language and medical skills are being terminated before they can qualify for citizenship. Lawyers for the recruits say at least 30 have been discharged in recent months and thousands more are stuck in limbo — currently enlisted but unable to serve — and may also be forced out. This is occurring while the army has not reached their 2018 recruitment quota. We’ll be joined by reporter Alex Horton of The Washington Post, he has been writing about the issue of the U.S. military discharging qualified (and necessary) recruits. This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson. 

Ecologist Matt Wilkins and Environmental Sociologist Rebecca Altman, discuss the evolution of plastic in the environment, the problems it’s causing today and what we can do about it. Wilkins will discuss his new article in Scientific American, “More Recycling Won't Solve Plastic Pollution: It’s a lie that wasteful consumers cause the problem and that changing our individual habits can fix it.” Wilkins goes into the corporate greenwashing of the Keep America Beautiful campaign, which has deep historical roots shifting the environmental responsibility from plastic producers to the individual, and their legacy of fighting against policies that hold producers accountable. Altman, the daughter of a plastic producer, places the petro-chemical industry in context, explains just how micro-plastics are seeping into the food chain, and debunks some common myths about plastic, recycling, and sustainability. They will also talk about the recent movement to eliminate plastic drinking straws and other examples of the everyday struggle of trying to minimize our ecological footprint.  This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson. 

Curators Steve Jaffe and Sarah Seidman discuss Jaffe’s new book, Activist New York: A History of People, Protest, and Politics. The book takes a sweeping look at the over 400 years (1650-2010s) of activism in New York City and is also a visual companion to the Museum of the City of New York's ongoing exhibit of the same name. With a resurgence in activism across the U.S., this serves as a timely reminder of New York City's place as the "capital city of social activism." On September 6 at 6:30 pm The Gotham Center for New York History will be hosting, 'Does Protest Still Matter? Lessons from NYC; Activist Capital' (The Graduate Center, CUNY; Gotham Center for New York History; Elebash Recital Hall, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016) This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson.

Robert Gottlieb discusses his book Near-Death Experiences . . . and Others. This new collection features over twenty pieces he’s written mostly for The New York Review of Books. The writings are as varied as they are provocative, from a probe into the world of post-death experiences to a sharp look at the biopics of transcendent figures such as Shakespeare, Molière and Austen. This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson.

In 1899, Allie Rowbottom's great-great-great-uncle bought the patent to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. Though the generations that followed enjoyed immense privilege they were also haunted by suicides, cancer, alcoholism, and mysterious ailments. Before Allie's mother died in 2015, she began to send Allie boxes of her research and notes, in the hope that her daughter might write what she could not. JELL-O GIRLS is the liberation of that story. In JELL-O Girls: A Family History, Rowbottom considers the roots of trauma not only in her own family but in the American psyche as well, ultimately weaving a story that is deeply personal, as well as deeply connected to the collective female experience. This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson. 

Journalists Joel Lovell and Mark Joseph Stern discuss their recent reports about the evolving direction of the ACLU. Since President Trump took office, the ACLU has filed more than 100 lawsuits against constitutional infringements like attempting to restrict immigration and ban transgender people from the military. The ACLU is re-evaluating what role it plays in America today and is following the lead of an unexpected group: the NRA. In The New York Times Magazine, Lovell writes about the inner workings of the advocacy group in his article, “Can the A.C.L.U. Become the N.R.A. for the Left?” and Stern has been writing about the ACLU's work while covering courts and the law for Slate.  This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson. 

Award-winning author Paul Tremblay discusses his new book The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel. Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. One afternoon, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Three more strangers eventually arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: "Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world." Thus begins a tense, gripping tale of paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival that escalates to a shattering conclusion, one in which the fate of a loving family and quite possibly all of humanity are entwined. On July 25 at 12:30 pm Paul Tremblay will be at the Bryant Park Summer Reading Series at Bryant Park (42nd Street & 6th Avenue, NY, NY) On July 25 at 7:00 pm Paul Tremblay will be at McNally Jackson (Brooklyn location: 76 N 4th St, 11249). This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson.   

Reporters Annie Correal and Caitlin Dickerson discuss their recent investigation for The New York Times titled, “Cleaning Toilets, Following Rules: A Migrant Child’s Days in Detention.” The article takes a close look at the conditions of the shelters for children separated from their families and how these children are being treated. This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson. 

Bryce Covert and Zoë Carpenter discuss their recent pieces for The Nation: Covert’s “Will Red-State Protests Spark Electoral Change?” and Carpenter’s “These Kids Are Watching Their Parents Die.” Covert’s piece looks at how austerity measures across Republican-held states have not only gutted their social safety nets, but also hindered the states’ recoveries from the recession. Carpenter’s cover story focuses on West Virginia, an epicenter of the opioid crisis, and looks at the children growing up in the shadow of addiction, where public schools have become the safety net of last resort. She ties together disparate threads of disaster exacerbating the epidemic to show how an economy gutted by plant closures and a state-inflicted austerity regime have left towns hollowed out by drugs, with no social safety net left to mitigate disaster. This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson. 

Glen David Gold discusses his new book I Will Be Complete: A Memoir. Gold was raised rich, briefly, in southern California at the end of the go-go 1960s. But his father's fortune disappeared, his parents divorced, and he fell out of his well-curated life and into 1970s San Francisco. Gold grew up with his mother, among con men and get-rich schemes. Then, one afternoon when he was twelve, she moved to New York without telling him, leaving him to fend for himself. On July 24 at 7:30 pm Glen David Gold will be at Greenlight (686 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217).   This segment is guest hosted by DW Gibson.     

Writer and comedian Audrey Murray discusses her book,  Open Mic Night in Moscow: And Other Stories from My Search for Black Markets, Soviet Architecture, and Emotionally Unavailable Russian Men. At age twenty-eight, while her friends were settling into corporate jobs and serious relationships, Murray was on a one-way flight to Kazakhstan, the first leg of a nine-month solo voyage through the former USSR. A blend of memoir and offbeat travel guide, this catalog of a comedian’s adventures is also a diary of her emotional discoveries about home, love, patriotism, loneliness, and independence. On July 24 at 7 pm Audrey Murray will be at Powerhouse Arena (28 Adams St, Brooklyn).   This segment is guest hosted by Jenna Flanagan. 

Lauren Collins discusses her recent piece in The New Yorker, “What Women Want” (online titled, "How the BBC Women Are Working Toward Equal Pay"). She reports on equal pay, the gender pay gap, and the industries around the world in which women are paid less than their male colleagues for doing the same work. Collins looks at the case of Carrie Gracie, who, in 2013, became the BBC’s China editor. In July 2017, the BBC published a list of its highest-paid stars, and Gracie calculated that she was getting paid around fifty percent less than her male colleagues. This segment is guest hosted Jenna Flanagan. 

Lise Vesterlund, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh discusses her recent article in the Harvard Business Review, “Why Women Volunteer for Tasks That Don’t Lead to Promotions.” Her research found that in the workplace, women are more likely to take on challenging work and additional time-consuming tasks that are unlikely to drive revenue, and probably won’t be recognized or included in performance evaluations. She details why this is the case, and what can be done to make it better. We’ll also take calls from listeners about their experiences with “volunteering” for projects at work. This segment is guest hosted by Jenna Flanagan. 

Journalist and author Michael Scott Moore discusses his memoir, The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast. Incorporating personal narrative and investigative journalism, this book explores foreign policy, religious extremism, and the costs of survival. In January 2012, Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a twist of fate, Moore was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates. In September 2014, after 977 days in captivity, he walked free when his ransom was put together by the help of several U.S. and German institutions, friends, colleagues, and his mother. In this book, Moore also observes the economics and history of piracy, the effects of post-colonialism, the politics of hostage negotiation and ransom, and the various faces of Islam, ultimately placing his ordeal in the context of the larger political and historical issues currently at play in East Africa.       On July 23 at 7 pm Michael Scott Moore will be at The Half King (505 W. 23rd Street).   This segment is guest hosted by Jenna Flanagan.