“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

When Rev. Winnie Varghese, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, was a kid, “I wasn’t sure if it was intelligent to believe in God.” The making of a religious thinker. Listen: personplacething.org

“I met Gide and Hemmingway and Ravel. I even shook hands with Camille Saint-Saëns,” says Aaron Copland (as played by Michael Boriskin). The best bar ever? No, the home of his composition teacher, Nadia Boulanger, Listen: personplacething.org

Was he Leonard Bernstein’s lover? Aaron Copland (as played by Michael Boriskin) is vague about it. A conversation from beyond the grave. Listen: personplacething.org

Architect Charles Renfro distinguishes “queer” from “gay.” The former “has nothing to do with sexuality; it has to do with openness and invention—inventing yourself.” Listen: personplacething.org

Architecture changes but does it progress? Architect Charles Renfro says, “We can talk about the word ‘progress,’ which I hate; I disdain the word. I don’t really believe there’s such a thing.” He does not refer to medical science. I hope. Listen: personplacething.org

Architect Charles Renfro describes Berlin’s Berghaim nightclub. “The music is so loud that you become disoriented, but in a great great great great way.” The best sort of disorientation. Listen: personplacething.org

“You should always do something that you could get hurt doing,” says architect Charles Renfro. Not suicidal but alive, able to move through the world without being told how. Listen: personplacething.org

Richard Nelson directed several of his plays translated into languages he does not speak—French, Ukrainian. How did he know what was going on? “You could just feel whether you’re being truthful or not.” Listen: personplacething.org

“When I’m lost as a writer, a playwright, director, and often as a person, says Richard Nelson, “I turn to two writers most often. One is Anton Chekov, and the other is Harley Granville Barker.” Who? Exactly! Listen: personplacething.org

“A play is many perspectives at once,” says writer Richard Nelson. “If you’ve got ten actors on stage, you’ve got ten points of view on stage.” And a surprisingly big budget. Listen: personplacething.org

LaFrae Sci @frae-frae111.bsky.social, head of @WillieMaeRockCamp.bsky.social is wary of calling Robert Johnson a “genius.” “That moniker can undermine or dehumanize the work he put into his craft.” Listen: personplacething.org

LaFrae Sci @frae-frae111.bsky.social, head of @WillieMaeRockCamp.bsky.social notes that their namesake, Willie Mae Thornton, “was not anybody’s idea of a lead singer, visually.” But that voice! Listen: personplacething.org

LaFrae Sci @frae-frae111.bsky.social of @WillieMaeRockCamp.bsky.social teaches girls blues and STEM. “I told them Bessie Smith was more famous than Beyonce in her day, and they asked me how did she get famous without the internet?” Kids! Listen: personplacething.org

Journalist Ali Velishi @velshi.com of @ms.now says, “Once you say thank you to a guest, they must go away, and you go to the next segment.” He means on the air, not when you host a dinner party. Listen: personplacething.org

Journalist Ali Velishi @velshi.com of @ms.now recalls, “There’s a photograph of my grandfather on Gandhi’s shoulders.” His grandfather was only seven, but still. Listen: personplacething.org

Journalist Ali Velishi @velshi.com of @ms.now notes, “Telling people they get the government they asked for is fine until it starts to affect the rest of us.” There’s always a catch. Listen: personplacething.org

The former head of NYC’s Economic Development Corp., @AndrewKimball.bsky.social, says his organization “thinks in decades, not four-year cycles.” I’m impressed by any agency that thinks at all. Listen: personplacething.org

Former head of NYC’s Economic Development Corp. @AndrewKimball.bsky.social named “our number one crisis as a country and city.” I went for the cheap Trump joke; he meant climate change. Similar, actually. Listen: personplacething.org

The former head of NYC’s Economic Development Corp. @AndrewKimball.bsky.social quotes his friend and mentor Dan Doctoroff: “We need to radically collaborate.” The Zen of urban planning. Listen: personplacething.org

When composer Carlos Simon met his hero Qunicy Jones, he hoped for brilliant musical insights. “The first thing he asked me, ‘Hey, man, what’s your sign?’” Listen: personplacething.org