Live the Dash: Recent Episodes
Nika Raiffe
"So, when your eulogy is being read / With your life's actions to rehash / Would you be proud of the things they say / About how you spent your dash?" I hope to invigorate you to live your dash to the fullest through sharing the mic with friends, teachers, mentors and just really cool people I didn't know how to reach out to before, but now have a pretty good reason to indeed reach out to for conversations about life, vulnerability, philosophy of science, spontaneity and what it means to be a decent human being in this mad extravagant world. Hosted by Nika Raiffe, a junior at Stuyvesant High School in NYC.
"Hey you, remember what you love!"
One day in late March I sat down with Cyrus Cursetjee to talk about his passion for violin, table tennis, and computer science, how he would distribute apples in his classes and how grateful he is for his mother teaching him Spanish. (My favorite moment of the episode is when I convince him to call her and tell her...)
Cyrus Cursetjee is a senior at Stuyvesant High School and an incoming freshman at Yale.
Thank you for listening!
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Peace ✌️
"The space for perfectionism is in the last ten percent of the project, not the first forty"
This episode is a second installment with Bill Wrigley, a visual arts teacher at Stuyvesant High School, and this time we talked more about impostor syndrome, Mr. Wrigley’s lukewarm coffee metaphor for the way we make art and live our lives, as well as broader takes on education, self-sabotage, politics, not having space to cry, and Wes Anderson movies.
Things mentioned:
Adam Ellis "If you go for it, you'll live"
“We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” -- Bob Ross
Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain"
Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square"
James Brown
"I want to thank you" pier in Lower Manhattan (we see it from our school's windows)
Jimmy Carter
Overton window
Actor David Thewlis
Wes Anderson's film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Bill Wrigley's website:
https://www.likethegum.com
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https://www.instagram.com/pleaselivethedash
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https://www.instagram.com/nikaraiffe/
"Over and over the narratives that we commit to will crash...so how do we move on in a way that is a bit more crash-proof?"
DiCo is a Speech & Debate coach and history teacher at Stuyvesant High School. He graduated from the school in '03 and from Yale in '07. He also founded Brooklyn Debate League, a Speech & Debate nonprofit.
We talked about processing trauma and identity through public speaking, letting go of the need to be the smartest to start crushing it, and not giving up on trust when things change; as well as Lin-Manuel Miranda, living in the borderlands, and speaking up.
Things mentioned:
Brooklyn Debate League
"Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire
Rabbi Benay Lappe's TED Talk
Gloria E. Anzaldúa
"The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
Lin-Manuel Miranda
The West Wing ----
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https://www.instagram.com/pleaselivethedash
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https://www.instagram.com/nikaraiffe/
"We need to take a collective deep breath and realize not everyone is out to get us"
I sat down with my friend and classmate Anjini Katari to talk about how none of us actually have it all together, and how that's okay, too. It was fun! (Prior to the recording, Anjini brought cookies, which probably made us a lot less pessimistic about ourselves...)
Things mentioned:
Studio 666
"Something Bright, Then Holes" by Maggie Nelson
TKS
"Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
"Arc of a Scythe" by Neal Shushterman
Follow Anjini:
https://www.instagram.com/adragonjini/
Follow Live the Dash:
https://www.instagram.com/pleaselivethedash
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https://www.instagram.com/nikaraiffe/
Bill Wrigley is a visual arts teacher at Stuyvesant High School. We talked about his Columbia grad school thesis on Richard Serra, the nature of creative talent, electronic music, Andy Warhol, being chased by the Italian military police after too many espressos, and studying painting at Pratt Institute in the 90s.
“There’s a saying in my home county-- you move to Boston to find yourself and to New York to lose yourself”
Bill Wrigley's website:
https://www.likethegum.com
Things mentioned:
Movie about Jean-Michel Basquiat
I Shot Andy Warhol
From A to B and Back Again
4 hour documentary on Warhol (Youtube)
Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe
Richard Serra's The Matter of Time and Torqued Ellipse
James Turrell
"Subsequent Performances" by Jonathan Miller
The Creative Act, a lecture by Marcel Duchamp
Music mentioned:
"Let's Go" by The Reducers
Techno Animal
John Cage
Gogol BordelloDresden Dolls
Autechre's "Gantz Graf"
Portishead
Thelonious Monk
David Bowie's album "Low"
Brian Eno's "Music for Films"
Surf Guitar
Iggy Pop's theme for Repo Man
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https://www.instagram.com/pleaselivethedash
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https://www.instagram.com/nikaraiffe/
How to not lose yourself in the rigor of Stuyvesant academics?
Jeffrey Wan ('15) is a physics teacher at Stuyvesant High School. We talked about how he manages to be both casual and professional at the same time, his own experience with learning physics, the comfort of soul-crushing academic workload, making decisions, teaching science, and finding aliveness everywhere.
"The same mercy, grace and generosity you extend to others, I’ll ask you to extend to yourselves"
Things mentioned:
John Dewey
Mister Rogers
David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech
Ping Pong the Animation
"Excellent Sheep" by William Deresiewicz (book on college admissions)
"The Savage Detectives" by Roberto Bolaño
"Cloud Atlas: A Novel" by David Mitchell
"The Shame of the Nation" by Jonathan Kozol
"Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Inquiry Into Science Education" by Richard N. Steinberg
Mindsweeper
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...and keep living the dash! :)
Finally...here it is. The podcast I've wanted to launch for the longest of times, dedicated to conversations with people who invigorate me to live the dash in a more bold and less afraid way-- and that is, the brief and wondrous dash that symbolizes our time alive.
For the first episode, I shared the floor and the mic with a dear friend of mine, Sarah Cheyney. Sarah is a senior at Stuyvesant High School, and I've seen her juggle what seems to be a gazillion of responsibilities with a level of self-trust and grace I found incredibly refreshing, so we talked about that, and the value of a decentralized social life, spirituality and advice on college applications.
It was truly a delight to record this with Sarah -- there was more to discuss, but she had a macroeconomics class to attend to :)
Things mentioned:
The Help Movie
Thich Nhat Hanh (NYTimes)
"Become What You Are" by Alan Watts (Wе didn't mention it in the episode but I've always loved Alan Watts' meditations on anxiety and identity)
Logo by Julia Shen
Intro music by Zavtrakkusto
To everyone who helped me bring the idea to life, grand merci ♥️
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Let the ride begin :)