Ophthalmologist Herb Gould pioneered intraocular lens surgery. What made it possible? One word: Plastics. Hear why: personplacething.org

As a young Air Force doctor, Herb Gould would go out for beers with Werhner von Braun. “I don’t care about the politics; I only care about the rockets.” That's Herb, not Werhner. Listen: personplacething.org

James Snyder of the Jewish Museum on Paul Klee: “He was the first artist in Germany declared degenerate by Hitler. He was treated like a Jew even though he wasn’t a Jew.” Equal opportunity in reverse. Listen: personplacething.org

Would James Snyder, director of the Jewish Museum, have recognized the portrait of Mrs. Aaron Lopez as a Gilbert Stuart? “Absolutely not.” Hear why (not): personplacething.org

The director of the Jewish Museum, James Snyder mounted an exhibit capturing 3,500 years of Jewish life. “It’s identity, frailty, migration, and memory.” Where’s alienation? What about my needs? Listen: personplacething.org

For Countess Markievicz, say Alan Klein and Sandy Neubauer, “Everything came back to getting freedom for Ireland. And having a good garden.” A green revolutionary. Listen: personplacething.org

An irony of the Irish Proclamation of Independence of 1916, say Alan Klein and Sandy Neubauer: “It’s addressed to both Irish men and Irish women. However, it’s signed by seven men.” Irony is one word for it. There are others. Listen: personplacething.org

Alan Klein and Sandy Neubauer tell the Grolier Club about Countess Markievicz: “She liked marching guys up and down in military regalia, and practicing shooting, and arming themselves.” Or maybe it was Laura Loomer. Listen: personplacething.org

Experts on the revolutionary war in New York City, historians Peter Aigner and Ted Knudsen tell @GothamCenter.bsky.social, “Looking at it from the African American perspective, the British are undoubtedly the good guys.” Listen: personplacething.org

Historians Peter Aigner and Ted Knudsen of @GothamCenter.bsky.social note that cheers for liberty in revolutionary era New York, “were perhaps a little ironic in a city where one out of six or seven people were enslaved.” Listen: personplacething.org

Historians Peter Aigner and Ted Knudsen tell @GothamCenter.bsky.social that in 1770, “New Yorkers commissioned this great big golden statue of King George III.” Make up your own Trump joke. Listen: personplacething.org

He photographs old subway repair shops, Christopher Payne tells @NYTransitMuseum.bsky.social: “I’m one step ahead of the wrecking ball. It’s heart-breaking.” Presented with MTA Arts and Design. @mta.info. Listen: personplacething.org

Christopher Payne tells @NYTransitMuseum.bsky.social he loves photographing factories: “When I walk on that floor, I feel the democratic spirit. It gives me hope.” Presented with MTA Arts and Design. @mta.info. Listen: personplacething.org

A supervisor helped Christopher Payne photograph @MTA.info power plants, he tells @NYTransitMuseum.bsky.social: “He gave me skeleton keys that could open any substation in the city.” Sounds like a Batman movie. Listen: personplacething.org

Abe Lincoln, portrayed by ChatGPT—AI-braham Lincoln—reflects on a colleague: “Grant was a brilliant general, but once in the White House he often seemed out of his depth.” As observed from heaven, I guess. Listen: personplacething.org

Abe Lincoln, portrayed by ChatGPT—AI-braham Lincoln—on Shakespeare’s military figures: “From Macbeth to Coriolanus, these men may be brilliant on the battlefield, but their grasp of courtly intrigue and governance falters.” Listen: personplacething.org

A conversation with Abraham Lincoln as portrayed by ChatGPT: AI-braham Lincoln. Listen: personplacething.org

Marta Aznavoorian says, “It takes over your soul. It’s almost like a trance or a spell. It’s like a religion.” MAGA? Music! A conversation with a pianist. Listen: personplacething.org

Pianist Marta Aznavoorian looks fabulous on stage. Does that make people take her less seriously as a musician? Not at all. “It is a show, and people listen with their eyes as well.” Listen: personplacething.org

Marta Aznavoorian grew up in a musical family: “It was all about the violin. The violin was the king instrument.” She is, by the way, a pianist. And a fine one. Listen: personplacething.org

“I actually love paying my taxes,” says Katrina Foster, Lutheran bishop of New York, “because the return on that investment is so extreme.” Rendering unto Caesar. Listen: personplacething.org

Lutheran bishop Katrina Foster says hope is not only a Christian virtue, it is a practical necessity. “Somebody who has no hope is the most dangerous human being you will ever come across.” Even worse, hopeless with a handgun—American style. Listen: personplacething.org

Bishop Katrina Foster of New York’s Lutheran synod: ‘I do liturgical drag now like crazy. I have the miter, I have the cloak, I have the chasuble, I have the crozier; I’m fabulous walking around.” She’s fabulous sitting and talking, too. Listen: personplacething.org

“It’s a postcard of perfection, “says Katrina Foster, Lutheran Bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod, of the view from the Brooklyn Bridge. Clearly, you can’t see my apartment from there. Listen: personplacething.org

When Katrina Foster, Lutheran Bishop of New York, married a woman, and they had a child, “The church did not recognize my family, and I could have been defrocked for having one.” Happily, she’s still frocked. Listen: personplacething.org

Katrina Foster, Lutheran Bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod, says, “I want Job to turn around to God and go, ‘Don’t bitch about it, because you made it.’” Not spite, theology. Listen: personplacething.org

“In the veterinary profession, we have a relationship with death that many professions don’t,” says Dennis Slade. Cleary, he hasn’t met my ex-wife’s divorce lawyer. Comedy with a capital K. Listen: personplacething.org

“Legally, I don’t think I’m allowed to touch a monkey,” says Carly Fox. Me neither. But she and Dennis Fox are veterinarians, and I’m, well, it’s complicated. And the cops are such liars. Listen: personplacething.org

New York permits pet chinchillas but not pet ferrets. “I prefer ferrets,” says veterinarian Carly Fox, “They have more personality than chinchillas.” And more humanity than Stephen Miller, she did not add. Listen: personplacething.org

Paul Taylor didn’t talk a lot when lighting designer Jennifer Tipton worked with him. “I assumed if he didn’t say much he was in agreement with me.” I would not extend that assumption to one’s personal life. Listen: personplacething.org

Lighting designer Jennifer Tipton worked with both gels and LEDs and is uneasy about the latter. “It’s difficult to use the non-full-spectrum colors.” Almost a metaphor for DEA. If the president heard it, he’d shut her down. And he’s such a dance fan. Listen: personplacething.org

From the start, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton considered more than how a stage will look: “I learned how light, certain light, felt, so that I knew how the dancers felt.” Listen: personplacething.org

When Jennifer Tipton lights a performance, does she imagine it from the perspective of the audience or the dancers? “I’m thinking of it from the perspective of me. That’s all I have: these eyes.” Listen: personplacething.org

Early influences on @HelenShaw.bsky.social, chief theater critic of the NY Times, were not Shakespeare or Stoppard but Star Trek. “The little cake topper on our wedding cake was a plastic figurine of Captain Kirk and a plastic figurine of Captain Piccard back to back.” Listen: personplacething.org

Critics are purveyors of opinion, but @HelenShaw.bsky.social, chief theater critic of the New York Times, emphasizes a different part of the job. “The sacred part of the review is not the opinion. The sacred part is the description.” Listen: personplacething.org

@HelenShaw.bsky.social, chief theater critic of the New York Times, is not well rounded. “People ask me about my interests, and I don’t have any other than theater.” The fox and the hedgehog. She’s the one that writes well. Listen: personplacething.org

Actor David Greenspan is opposed to the audience eating at the theater but acknowledges, “In Shakespeare’s day, people used to chomp during Hamlet.” Historical perspective. Listen: personplacething.org

The first indoor theater was in Italy not England, notes actor David Greenspan. “Italy was always a little bit ahead. They had their renaissance first.” And better food. Listen: personplacething.org

Actor and playwright David Greenspan talks about Thespis, the Globe, and his salad spinner. Great moments in theater and dinner. Listen: personplacething.org

Does taking jazz from night clubs to Lincoln Center turn the music into artifacts and the stage into a museum? No, says Lana Turner. “I don’t know that it’s become a museum; I think it’s become a destination.” Listen: personplacething.org

Some guests have a hard time picking a person, place, and thing. Lana Turner consulted an expert: “I said to myself, are you sure, and my self said yes.” Harlem, history, and hats. Listen: personplacething.org

Like most places, Harlem has changed, so is it still Harlem? Yes, says Lana Turner. “The soul of a place can never be erased.” Except the East Wing of the White House, she did not add. Listen: personplacething.org

Here’s why you can’t sleep, says neuroscientist @AnjanChatterjee.bsky.social: “We don’t get enough light in the morning, and we get too much at night.” He doesn’t mention my clog-dancing neighbors. Listen: personplacething.org

Neuroscientist @AnjanChatterjee.bsky.social learned in college, “If you did work together, physical work, you also thought better together.” Thinking as a social act. Listen: personplacething.org

Scholar Elizabeth Way says “What made American fashion different is that it was to be wearable, comfortable, practical.” But not on the red carpet at the Oscars, she did not add. Listen: personplacething.org

Elizabeth Way, curator of the exhibition Art X Fashion at the Museum at FIT, says, “I don’t need fashion to be art to be important.” Or vice versa, I presume. Listen: personplacething.org

When musician Kinan Azmeh and his sister were kids, their dad bought them a computer and declared, “You will have to choose between being programmers or being programmed.” A metaphor. A scary scary metaphor. Listen: personplacething.org

Composer and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh asserts, “Everybody improvises. Whether they share the improvisation in public or not, that’s another story.” Juilliard Confidential. Listen: personplacething.org

For much of human history, a church organ, like the mighty one at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, was the loudest thing anyone heard (at least indoors). Was it the voice of God? Listen: personplacething.org

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine displays sculptures of one “secular saint” per century for 2000 years. Perfect people? No, says Dean Winnie Varghese: “Very flawed people who’ve done very good things.” Listen: personplacething.org