Episode 72: Patricia Marx

The last word goes to Patricia Marx. A staff writer for The New Yorker, she’s the unofficial voice of New York City, and was apparently seconded briefly to the Montana State Tourism Board. We are rewarded with her colorful travelogue of a recent trip to a friend’s ranch in or near Yellowstone (wholly unclear which), and her deep and abiding gratitude for the lockdown’s inducement of uninterrupted reading. We hear tales of literary betrayals, creative uses of empty office towers, NYC’s resilience and hermetic worldview, her appreciation of noise and pollution, Governor Cuomo’s situation, the ‘stars’ of the Republican Party, the likely tenor of the upcoming Met Ball, her love of masks, the fate of theater, the virtues of getting to places early, her appreciation of just waiting for things, a brief jury duty experience, adventures with hoarding, and antidotes to writer’s block. It’s our last episode of the summer—we’ll return refreshed and presumably re-vaccinated after Labor Day.