Now What? With Carole Zimmer

Now What? With Carole Zimmer

Conversations with extraordinary people about their lives and how they navigate all the bumps in the road.

Episodes

August 19, 2025 34 mins

Footwear runs in the family. Kenneth Cole’s father had a shoe manufacturing company in Brooklyn. Cole’s brand is also known for the social issues he embraces, from combating HIV/AIDS to calling attention to the stigma of mental illness. The new documentary A Man with Sole looks at how Cole’s company took off after he parked a trailer in front of the Hilton Hotel, installed a red carpet and sold 40,000 pairs of shoes in three days. ...

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Laurie Woolever was chef Mario Batali’s assistant at a time when his hit restaurant Babbo was attracting celebrity diners vying for reservations. Then she spent almost a decade working for Anthony Bourdain. Woolever made haircut appointments for the TV host in New York and she found places in Singapore or Mumbai where Bourdain could practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu when he was on the road filming his long-running TV show Parts Unknown....

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Maira Kalman is one of those multi-talented people. She writes children’s stories and books for adults. She’s also a contributor to the New York Times, creates covers for the New Yorker and sets for operas. Her latest book, Still Life with Remorse, includes family stories, paintings and vignettes about historical figures like Leo Tolstoy and Franz Kafka. She also likes to dress up like like those characters and make funny films abo...

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July 7, 2025 38 mins

James Carville’s nickname is The Ragin’ Cajun. He became famous when Bill Clinton hired him as his lead political strategist in 1992 and Carville helped the guy from Hope beat George H.W. Bush to become the 42nd U.S. president. Carville’s aggressive tactics are highlighted in the documentary “The War Room.” He’s also famous for being part of a couple who are on opposite sides of the political spectru...

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June 24, 2025 58 mins

Larry Charles is a true character. He liked to wear his pajamas to work. He was one of the original writers of Seinfeld. He also wrote and directed Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes. In between, Charles made a movie with Bob Dylan called Masked and Anonymous that was never released. He also directed Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat and Bruno where Cohen ran down the street in an orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood wearing pink hot pants. Larry C...

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June 10, 2025 46 mins

Paul Hawken has racked up several notable accomplishments in his life. As a teenager, in the mid-60s, Hawken headed south to join the civil rights movement. He’s always had a strong sense of social justice and he started several companies that emphasized operating in a socially responsible way including The Erewhon Trading Company, a natural foods wholesaler, and the garden supply company Smith and Hawken. And through it all Paul H...

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May 27, 2025 44 mins

Penn Jillette and his partner Teller have created one of the most successful and lucrative careers in show business by using mind bending effects and revealing the secrets behind their magic tricks. Teller is the short one with sleight of hand who doesn’t speak. Penn is 6 feet 6 inches tall. He’s the juggler who talks and plays the double bass. They’re the longest-running headliners in the history of Las Vegas and they have a TV sh...

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May 13, 2025 36 mins

Alison Bechdel is a cartoonist and graphic novelist. She first started getting attention for her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For and later wrote a graphic memoir called Fun Home which is about her father’s troubled life and her own experience of coming out as a lesbian. In 2015, Fun Home was produced as a Broadway musical and won 5 Tony Awards. Her new graphic novel Spent is about an artist trying to come to terms with her past ...

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April 29, 2025 48 mins

Writer Sophie Gilbert has a theory about the early 2000s. In her new book Girl on Girl, she’s written about some disturbing trends in popular culture focusing on the way that girls were portrayed in magazines and TV shows. Britney Spears, the "Princess of Pop,” appeared on 8 Rolling Stone covers dressed in scanty outfits and striking provocative poses. Lindsay Lohan became a pop idol at the age of 17. Keeping U...

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April 15, 2025 45 mins

Amy Irving’s film career soared in the 1980s. She was featured in the film Yentl, a role that earned her an Academy Award nomination. In the movie Crossing Delancey, Irving plays a single woman who falls in love with a pickle merchant. In real life, Irving married Steven Spielberg, a relationship that ended in divorce. She co-starred with Willie Nelson in the film Honeysuckle Rose and that was the beginning of a life-long friendshi...

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April 1, 2025 55 mins

Elizabeth Anne Hanks is a writer. She’s also the daughter of Tom Hanks. Her mother Susan was married to Tom Hanks before he became a movie star. Elizabeth grew up with her mother and older brother in Sacramento while her dad’s career in Hollywood took off with lead roles in movies like Big and Forrest Gump. Elizabeth could relate to something the character of Forrest said in the film. "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never kn...

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March 18, 2025 54 mins

Pico Iyer is a travel writer and a novelist who has spent time in far flung places like Ethiopia, Tibet, North Korea, Bhutan and Nepal exploring the history, culture and food of diverse cultures. In contrast to his life on the road in places, Iyer is now spending more time exploring his inner life. That’s what his latest book called Aflame Is all about. Several times a year, Iyer visits a Benedictine monastery in Big Sur which he f...

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March 4, 2025 34 mins

Pardons are about presidential power. Many presidents wait until the end of their term to issue them. Not Donald Trump. He has pardoned more than 1500 people who took part in the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. President Trump has also issued more than 70 executive orders, another instrument of presidential power. They focus on shrinking the government, imposing tariffs on Mexico, China and Canada and freezing forei...

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February 16, 2025 49 mins

Picture this. It was my first job in radio. I decided to do a series about women and comedy. The idea coincided with the birth of Saturday Night Live. The first interview: Gilda Radner. We sat on the floor, right across from Studio 8H where the show is still performed. Gilda told me all about what life is like when you become an overnight star. Then I talked to Jane Curtin about people asking her for autographs when she walked her ...

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February 4, 2025 37 mins

Rick Steves is a travel writer who’s on a mission. His name appears on guidebooks to nearly every country on the continent including Croatia and Slovenia as well as France and Italy. His television series Rick Steves Europe debuted on PBS 25 years ago. Steves advises travelers to get off the beaten trail and head for villages where they can see the way local people really live. He’s also a passionate advocate f...

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January 20, 2025 38 mins

Alan Lightman likes to look at things very closely. Lightman is a physicist at MIT who has written 7 novels including the best-selling Einstein’s Dreams. Lightman, who writes poetry in his spare time, calls himself a spiritual materialist. That’s a belief that you can find the spiritual within the realm of science. Lightman was also the host of the PBS television series Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. His la...

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January 7, 2025 46 mins

Maira Kalman is one of those multi-talented people. She writes children’s books and books for adults. She’s also a contributor to the New York Times. She creates covers for the New Yorker and sets for operas Her latest work is a book of essays called Still Life with Remorse that includes family stories and paintings she’s done. It also includes vignettes about historical figures like Leo Tolstoy and Franz Kafka. In fact, Kalman lik...

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December 25, 2024 60 mins

We're speeding towards the end of the year, a time for remembering and reflecting. When I think of "Now What?" I think of the extraordinary people I was privileged to speak with this year and that’s why this episode is a Best Of. Jane Fonda, who just celebrated her 87th birthday, shared a lifetime of experiences including information about her sex life. And when you talk about inspiring, there’s no one who shines like Su...

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December 9, 2024 46 mins

I first met Andy Bachman when he was a rabbinical student and he tutored my son Jon for his bar mitzvah. Bachman later served as Senior Rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, the reform synagogue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. In August, Bachman was supposed to participate in a discussion at the Powerhouse Arena bookstore. When he arrived, he found a sign in the window that said the event had been cancelled. Bachman later found out the discu...

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She used to make her living standing in Harvard Square as a statue known as the Eight Foot Bride. Then Amanda Palmer founded the punk cabaret band The Dresden Dolls. And she’s not afraid to tell you what’s on her mind. Palmer shares her feelings online and when she performs on stage. Her fans are passionate about the musician and the person. Palmer has more than 24,000 supporters on Patreon. She’s recently been named an honoree of ...

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