R. Coxeter

It’s that time of year when we cheer on complete strangers. And I love it.

Transcript here: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/ted.com/podcasts/the-art-of-the-interview-with-andrew-ross-sorkin-transcript Adam Grant: You introduced me last year to what has become my favorite metaphor for an interview that becomes a great conversation. You said it is like a tennis match. Talk to me about that and, and how you landed at this metaphor. Andrew Ross Sorkin: So first of all, I love tennis and I love watching a long rally. Just watched the US Open. And you know, people always say to me, who are you rooting for? And I always say, l'm rooting for a long, long match. That's what I want. And I think that's what everybody wants. And to me a great conversation is that. You, you don't really wanna see one person acing the other person over and over again. There's very little to learn from it. It's not particularly entertaining. There's just no excitement about it. And by the way, that doesn't mean you're not gonna hit the ball hard. It just means that two things, you actually want the other person to return the ball. Like, it's important that the other person can return the ball, and sometimes you'll place the ball in the corner to see if they can run. And by the way, sometimes they're gonna place the ball in the corner to see if you can run, but it just makes for a much more interesting dialogue.

Great listen or read on the art of the interview — and why a good conversation is like a tennis match.

ReThinking: The art of the interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin Podcast Episode · Worklife with Adam Grant · 10/21/2025 · 37m

“The worst advice people get when they're being interviewed is to show up with these 3 points that they're supposed to repeat over and over and over again. But the best interviews, the ones that you like the most, are the ones where it feels like the person is actually grappling with the question.”

One Bookstore, 3 Sisters and 100 Years

My kind of longevity story:“somewhere where every subject in the world can come up, and any type of person in the world might walk in.”

Opinion | Thank Goodness for the New York City Marathon

"The marathon is glorious in no small part because the day represents an ideal of civic life: people striving to accomplish their goals while seeking connection…let us take solace from this model of civic participation that reveals all that we can accomplish together when we cheer one another on."

An NYC marathoner gracefully mid-air on 5th, the final stretch.

NYC Marathon Sunday countdown…

YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Emma Thompson On Getting Paid To Be Funny, And Feeling “Intense Irritation” Over A.I.

“As a writer, what’s your relationship with technology? How do you feel about the coming AI revolution?” Colbert asks the ever eloquent Emma Thompson @ 3:38…

New JUST Capital Survey Shows American Public and Investors Disagree on Key AI Issues. One Area Of Alignment? More Spending on Safety. — JUST Capital As executives race to deploy AI's transformative potential, another urgent question looms: What do the people who determine a company's success — employees, consumers, communities, and investors — ac...

“The vast majority (96%) of investors believe AI will have a net positive impact on worker productivity. However, only 47% of the public say AI will result in a net positive impact on productivity.”

Opinion | Nobody Ever Got Younger, but It May Be Worth a Try The science behind the longevity movement is dubious. But the trend is promoting healthy habits.

Just out: @wsj.com op-ed I wrote on why I see such hope in the longevity movement, despite often dubious science & frequently exaggerated claims; in short: we're embracing agency, recognizing that we have a measure of control over our long-term health. wsj.com/opinion/nobo... (gift link).

“Especially in unclear cases like mine, A.I. tantalizes with both its endless availability and the promise, however illusory, of uncovering the hidden causes and mechanisms that mere mortals might have missed. It goes even beyond that. To be human is to be needy, and to seek affirmation and solace.”

On My Last Leg An illness returns after a quarter century.

“It is a head trip to think that this very sentence you are reading, and maybe even my willingness to share personal medical details, may, in some minor way, be informed by demyelination in my frontal lobe, an area believed to affect planning, decision-making, and memory.”

Chess matches in Washington Square Park. Near park fall color.

Fall games. Washington Square Park.

Why can’t I buy a small smartphone? Capitalism is not giving me what I want, but I’m not behaving like a good free market consumer myself

“Women must now live in a world in which phone manufacturers think we have hands the size of bears and jeans manufacturers think we have hands the size of pixies.”

“Secretary Kennedy is entitled to his views. But he is not entitled to put people’s health at risk. He has rejected science, misled the public and compromised the health of Americans…this is bigger than politics. It’s about putting the health of Americans first.”

Opinion | Six surgeons general: RFK Jr. is a threat to the health of Americans It was our duty in office to warn of dangers when we found them. We’re doing that again today.

“Mismanaging HHS endangers America’s health, undermines national security and damages our economic resilience and international credibility.”

When you search the Anthropic database on a lark and find your great aunt’s novels along with a relative’s math books. 😶

Carol Burnett Plays On The ninety-two-year-old comedy legend has influenced generations of performers. In a string of recent TV roles, she has been co-starring with some of her closest comedic heirs.

Same. “She has developed a habit of texting her daily Wordle score to a selection of friends, including Allison Janney, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Charlize Theron. Burnett doesn’t use a regular starting word, as many players do, but plucks a new guess each day ‘from the universe.’”

As investor for AHA, ‘Venture Valkyrie’ argues ‘good medicine is good business’ Lisa Suennen: "If this is going to make it a lot more expensive to get the same outcome, that is not a good investment."

Great Q&A with Lisa Suennen, managing partner at AHA Ventures, which oversees $200M in assets: “Inherent in the mission is to reduce barriers to care and to try to make things more accessible. If this is going to make it a lot more expensive to get the same outcome, that is not a good investment.”

Kennedy’s Vaccine Panel Votes to Limit Access to Covid Shots

“There will be preventable deaths that result from these decisions,” said Dr. Panagiotakopoulos, who oversaw the CDC’s work group on the Covid vaccine before she resigned in June. “Having people without vaccine and clinical expertise having the power to harm so much of the public is unbearable.”

Kasia Boddy · Pretty Garrotte: Why we need Dorothy Parker While she always insisted that she wasn’t a ‘real’ critic, Parker is more astute than most on matters of style,...

Sunday’s NYT cooking newsletter is always a comfort read, including Sifton’s listening and reading recs — like this Dorothy Parker piece in the London Review of Books.

The bright yellow-winged cloudless sulphur, in Central Park.

Central Park edit bench. Bright-winged flyer.

Trump Is Shutting Down the War On Cancer

“We are great in science. Why would we want to destroy one of our greatest assets?” -Harold Varmus, former NIH director and Nobel-winning cancer researcher

“Available projections suggest that health and longevity may increase further as modulators begin to be administered at younger ages. “

Transformative Research in Cystic Fibrosis | NEJM Michael Welsh, Jesús González, and Paul Negulescu have won the 2025 Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for their roles in developing treatments for cystic fibrosis.

Just remarkable: “Recorded life expectancy of a person with CF was generally months to a few years when Dorothy Andersen first described the disease; today, the estimated median age of survival for persons with CF who were born between 2020 and 2024 and have access to treatment is 65 years.”

The Way We Live Now: 11-11-01; Lost and Found (Published 2001)

“You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now. You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it.”

Central Park: New Yorker with a strong sense of personal space.

The Stakes of the Murdoch Family’s Peace Deal

Dealbook on cancer research megamerger: Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation & Mark Foundation for Cancer Research (founded by the hedge fund billionaire Alex Knaster) “create a new initiative to research how aging affects cancer risk.”

Philip Gourevitch on Gilles Peress’s Photo from September 11th Peress reached the World Trade Center just as the second tower collapsed.

The photographer Gilles Peress reached the World Trade Center just before the second tower collapsed. @pgourevitch.bsky.social reflects on Peress’s photograph of first responders at the scene. “There it is: ashes to ashes, dust to dust, no metaphors.” #NewYorker100

The gender gap in math widened in the pandemic. Schools are trying to make up lost ground Efforts to close the gender gap in STEM education are gaining momentum after setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m like, you’re 8 years old,” he said. “What are you talking about, ‘I’m not a math person?’”

David Baltimore, in his own words (2019).