Randy Fertel: Improv Everywhere

Most of us have no idea how others – even our friends and neighbors – spend their days at work. What’s it really like to be a plumber, a marriage counselor, an ice cream truck owner, an author of mystery novels? In his podcast Dan Heath talks to workers in dozens of different jobs to find out What It’s Like to Be.

The puppy kindergarten at Duke University is discovering how to spot a future great service dog while the dog is still a puppy. And it turns out that what makes a great service dog can also make your dog great.

How the acclaimed TV series came to be and what it has come to mean since, as recalled in a new book by cast members Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack. Including stories you’ve probably never heard before.

Alan and executive producer Graham Chedd look ahead to season 27. In a nostalgic look back at the TV series The West Wing, Alan recalls the scariest moments of his career; we visit a puppy kindergarten to spot future service dogs; a doctor tells stories that vividly illustrate the shortcomings of the health care system; and we meet a woman who can read our history as Earthlings. All that and more…

Her doctoral thesis led to her becoming a member of the team behind yesterday’s successful launch of NASA’s Clipper mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Her contribution could help find out if beneath its thick ice crust, Europa is friendly to life.

For eight years he wrote speeches for President Obama. Today he applies much of what he learned then in helping others with public speaking – how to craft a speech, how to connect with the audience, how to overcome the sheer terror of standing in front of dozens or hundreds of people.

He’s had a legendary life as a stand-up comedian, actor, writer, banjo player, even magician. As Steve talks about these threads in his life, a picture emerges of the thoughtful side of this remarkable entertainer.

A clarion call to those of us acutely aware of the peril facing our planet yet feel powerless to help save it. Ayana Johnson urges us to stop fretting about what “I” can do and instead think about what “we” can do, by joining our own skills and passions with those of others – and have fun doing it. Then, she asks in her provocative new book, What If We Get It Right?

Escaping the Covid lockdown in 2020 he and his wife Laurel set out in an RV to travel across America along the Lincoln Highway – a road more aspirational than real. But with Abraham Lincoln’s spirit as their guide they talked with the people they met along the way to explore the urgent question of what can hold our fractured country together.

Is improvisation at the heart of Western culture — music, art, literature, politics, even artificial intelligence?  Author Randy Fertel thinks so. And he warns that as much as it’s a positive force, there’s also peril in it.