Brian Lehrer: Welcome to our WNYC special. Lets make a time capsule together. Hi, everybody. I'm Brian Lehrer, and yes, this is a WNYC special for ringing out the old and ringing in the new. As we head into 2021 and leave 2020 behind, let's make a time capsule together to document a year that we would mostly rather forget but is important for many reasons to remember. Well, we open the time capsule in the year 2030. During these two hours, we'll invite you to leave a message for someone in 2030 with a story or a question. We'll explain how and we'll have special guests including On the Media's Brooke Gladstone, WNYC's Gwynne Hogan and Kai Wright, and Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater.

[music]

Hi, everybody. I'm Brian Lehrer, and this a WNYC special for ringing out the old and ringing in the new. As we head into 2021 and leave 2020 behind, let's make a time capsule together to document a year that we would mostly rather forget, right, but is important for many reasons to remember. We will reopen the time capsule in the year 2030. Now during these two hours, we'll invite you to leave a message for someone in 2030 with a story or a question. Maybe a message to yourself in 2030 to ask if you learned any long-term lessons from living small in 2020 like this caller for the Brian Lehrer Show from three days before Christmas.

Julie: I learned how to make pizza and bread and had no idea how to do that before. Second, I go to Trader Joe's [unintelligible 00:01:48] because it's just you have to prepare so much and plan it and see when the lines are less and when there's fewer people. The third, the best thing, is that I didn't speak to my family across the country that often and now we have regular Zoom meetings. As much as I don't like Zoom, I do like to keep up with everybody more often. I know we're going to continue that after.

Brian: Julie in Manhattan calling the show three days before Christmas. How will you look to yourself when you hear this in 2030 if you had thoughts like those this year? Maybe on this program you want to leave a message to your newborn baby. If you just brought a child of 2020 into the world, a message to your child who will be 10, perhaps about George Floyd and the savage inequalities of COVID, and so many other things by ways so they can go into their teenage years asking if we've made meaningful progress toward equal justice and toward health equality and other things by then. Hello, 2030. Remember this caller to our show?

Marcus: I feel that some white folks, there's this misconception that they have of Black males. When you're pulled over by the police, you feel so powerless the way that they treat you as if you're not a valued member of society. We do need white folks to stand with Black folks to really address these issues. I'm just so bothered by the lack of compassion, empathy, that you experience even when you're in a holding facility. You want to make a phone call. The way that you're spoken to. There is this thing that goes on in these police departments that I feel a lot of white folks just don't understand it, just don't see it. It's so deep and it hurts so much.

Brian: Marcus in Manhattan who called the show in December 2. Maybe you'll leave a message to your child, who is now five or six or seven, reminding them that they had to wear masks all the time when they were little and stay six feet from their friends and do their school year or so at home. In 2030, they can look back as teenagers and ask how all that influenced their idea of freedom or their attitudes towards closeness and their attitudes towards school. Parents have been calling about these kinds of things with lots of anxiety all pandemic long.

Well, maybe you want your congress person in 2030 to open the time capsule and hear what a relief it was, to most people in the New York area anyway, that Donald Trump was not reelected president of the United States. Also, what anxiety you might have felt when he tried to take democracy itself down with him. Maybe you want to ask 2030 if the price of that is still being paid.

We'll give you an opportunity to call about democracy 2020 style and all these things just a little later in the show. Those are just a few examples of what we might do on this program. We'll open the phones with our first specific caller question in just a few minutes, but joining us first for a few minutes are two Brian Lehrer Show producers who have been screening calls like these in 2020, Amina Srna and Zoe Azulay. Zoe has produced an amazing montage of callers who will tell the 2020 story in a unique way that we're about to hear. Hi, Zoe and hi, Amina. Thanks for stepping out from the behind the scenes for a few minutes.

Zoe Azulay: Hi. Good evening.

Amina Srna: Hi, Brian. Hi, Zoe.

Brian: Zoe, you've worked with the show for about six years and you never suggested making a year-end caller montage before. Was the experience of screening calls in 2020 very different from before?

Zoe: Yes. Well, I just started working with you in the winter of 2015 so that was right as the primaries were beginning and just the dawn of the Trump era. It was a very intense time to start journalism, and I'm grateful I got to see it through the eyes of your show. Really from day one of working here, I think, like so many people, I was struck by the power of the callers we got to speak to, how they always told a story, how you could transport into someone's kitchen.

Pretty early on, I did start to isolate some calls for myself. I had this [unintelligible 00:06:17] account. I would just sometimes edit out what I thought was like the caller of the day, just as someone with a particular character or I just like the sound of their voice. If they were marking something significant like, well, the election or the woman's march or something like that. I just try to cut out a caller that would make a good artifact.

When the pandemic started though, just everyday felt like a significant moment of time and there were just great calls happening everyday. I don't know, maybe I was just overwhelmed. I just didn't isolate any and it was always in the back of my mind. It's like, "Oh, geez. I have to. I should go back, I should. There are so many calls that are deserving of picking up."

Then when our colleague, Megan Ryan, suggested this time capsule project, I thought it's the perfect excuse to string together some of these moments that stood out to me. I do think we could have done that caller timeline in 2016 but the challenge of then would be to find a significant- what I found significant or memorable from one week wouldn't necessarily be what someone else would. 2020, with all the bad, there is this thrust forward that we all did experience, moments that were significant not in the same ways but there were these moments that carried us through, the school closures, the lockdown, the protest. There was this narrative cohesion to this year more than others.

Brian: That's a fascinating observation. I think it's right that we experienced isolation in a collective way. There's big irony to that. Amina, you've been with the show for four years. What were you able to tell about how the world had changed from the way our callers had changed?

Amina: Yes, that's right. I started as an intern on this show the spring before Trump was elected. I guess, correct if I'm wrong, but back then it felt like our role was really to break the news, to digest it, and have the callers react to it. This year, it felt a bit more like the callers are really bringing the stories to us whether it was as simple as their personal experiences or as complicated as citing specific studies and reports.

I think what we heard often on the phone or what we hear now often on the phone, there are people who are pretty in the weeds on a broad range of issues and they definitely don't take information for granted. They know they have to research the facts. I feel like the world has changed in that way too.

Brian: Zoe, in the montage you made that we're about to hear, did going through these 2020 shows again and hearing them in retrospect give you any new perspective on the progression of the lives people have been living this year? Because in a way, what we all felt like in April is different from what we all felt like in July is different from what we all feel like today, I think.

Zoe: I think that's true, yes. I went back and listened to a bunch of segments from March. Listening back, I was confronted by this question of, what do we do when we lose control of our normal life? The answer to that, at least according to our songs, is that we asked just a ton of questions. That month, March, I characterize it as our information gathering phase. We had these questions that added context sound like deranged mask problems like, "Can I put my mask in the oven to reuse it," or, "Can I catch COVID from my dog," or, "If I'm walking behind someone at three feet and the wind is blowing from the east," and like, "What are the chances that I catch it."

I think there was a sense of trying to answer those questions to get a semblance of control, but then we did get the answer to those few questions about transmissibility and spread, but that didn't actually mean we had any control over anything or could fix anything that life was not going back to normal. Then, in April, we started hearing the stories about how life had really changed, that group panic became individual panic. We heard from healthcare workers, to teachers, to people losing family, and the scopes of those stories were so vast and varied that I think as producers, we were just trying to wrap our heads around how to give these situations space to grow and to emerge.

Brian: Amina, one thing I want 2030 to know is just how different people's experiences have been from each other's this year. We talked a little bit just now, Zoe and I, about the collective experience of the pandemic world. Then again not, because the three of us, for example, have had stable jobs that we can do safely from home, but so many people have been devastated economically by a whole industry shutting down, or they have to work outside in constant contact with others, making them more at risk of getting the virus, and many in that situation have. Have you been hearing differences in privilege on the phones this year?

Amina: Yes, definitely a timely question because we know unemployment benefit slots today because of the government stimulus bill being in limbo. I think that 2020 was the year in which we've had a real reckoning with privilege, the most obvious one being white privilege. Many of our listeners really engaged in conversations around race and so many participated in the Black Lives Matter movement this year. Those who could marched, but we also heard from our elderly and immunocompromised listeners who cheered on from the sidelines.

I think that a lot of our listeners recognized their privilege by giving back to the extent that they could. We heard stories of some who went as big as starting their own nonprofits. Others donated what they had, whether it was a personal stock of two N95 masks, or part of their government stimulus check, or simply time to distribute food for those in need. I think this year our listeners recognized their individual privileges and put them into real action. They marched, they donated, and they voted, and then they called us to tell us about it.

Brian: Yes, nicely said. Okay, Zoe, we're about to play a montage of selected Brian Lehrer Show callers chronologically, starting in March of 2020. Any last things you want to say like things people might want to listen for?

Zoe: Yes. Let me just give you a little roadmap because it is 10 minutes of straight uninterrupted audio. You're going to hear the first caller is on March 13th, and that really captures the sense of what in the world is happening. Then, you'll hear listeners try to orient themselves, a nurse, a construction worker wonders why he's still going to work, a school teacher who's adapting to teaching remotely. You'll hear about loss, loss of jobs, loss of life.

Then, you'll hear the different chapters we went through this year. There was the grieving of George Floyd's death and the anger at our public officials. Some of the calls that you'll hear is from our historic June 5th Ask the Mayor. That's when curfew had just gone into effect, and this caller compares the NYPD to werewolves. He said they turn violent after dark. Whether you agree with that characterization or not, if you were listening to that Ask the Mayor, you remember that call, I think.

Then, I want you to listen for some joy and some gratitude. There is joy at these little things, if you remember, when finding toilet paper was joyous, or joy at Zoom cocktails when those were still enjoyable-

[laughter]

Zoe: -and the spontaneous street party when Joe Biden officially won. Then, the second to last caller is more Thanksgiving show where we ask callers to call in and thank a person, place, or thing. It's in second-person, but he's thanking his wife for keeping the family together. I think that's an important feeling to end on and keep with us this year, which is appreciation for the people in our lives who have provided us some peace among the chaos.

Brian: That's great. Yes, cocktails on Zoom once upon a time were novelty. Amina Srna and Zoe Azulay, WNYC Brian Lehrer Show producers, thanks for both of your amazing work this year. Listeners, we'll open up the phones as you listen to Zoe's montage. Let's try and experiment in thinking, and feeling, and being spontaneous. Pay attention to your thoughts and feelings as the montage is playing. When you hear something that sparks a thought or a feeling from 2020 that you want people to remember in 2030, call in with it, and we'll take your calls when the montage is done.

646-435-7280. Don't call in with it yet. You didn't hear the montage yet. Just make a note of the phone number. I'll say it again. Let's try and experiment in thinking, and feeling, and being spontaneous for the time capsule. Pay attention to your thoughts and your feelings as this 10-minute montage is playing. When you hear something that sparks a thought or a feeling from 2020 that you want people to remember in 2030, call in with it, and we'll take your calls when the montage is done.

646-435-7280 is the phone number. 646-435-7280. You can call as soon as you have something, and we'll put you on hold for after. 646-435-7280. Here we go. This begins with the Brian Lehrer Show caller from very early March.

Caller 1: I want to dispel all these rumors to begin with because I cannot seem to find anything online. Is it COVID-19 or coronavirus? Did it even really stem from that? What in the world is going on right now? I feel like everything is falling apart, and I'm not sure what to believe.

Caller 2: I have an N100 respirator. It's disposable. You're supposed to throw it away once it's contaminated. I only have one. Unfortunately, I bought it some time ago. My idea is to put it in the oven and reuse it.

Caller 3: I appreciate being called a hero, we all do. I'm sure we all appreciate the free pizza as well. It does not compare to the more important things we actually do need. In these days, we're using N95s and we're dealing with impossible patient assignments, we're having three patients to a nurse doing just basically assignments that would absolutely never happen in normal times.

Caller 4: Why- this is such a real emergency- am I going to work every day without protective equipment on luxury high-rises? I hadn't seen my boss in three weeks. We're sharing a porta potty, we're crammed into the manlift, we're given no protective equipment, and I'm afraid I'm going to get sick and bring it home.

Caller 5: Hi, Brian. How are you? It's good to hear your voice. I have a can of old pineapples that hasn't quite gone bad yet, but I use sweetened pineapples with yeast and flour for a sourdough starter.

Caller 6: The lines are quite long at the Trader Joe's. I look at that, and I see lines, and I don't think people are distancing enough, and I don't want to wait in that line. I've gone to the D'Agostino's, which nobody is going to, and it's pretty empty, and there's tons of toilet paper, guys.

Caller 7: I'm on the list to receive food through my senior center, and it's been several weeks now that my food hasn't been delivered, even though the people around me are getting food, and we can't figure out what's happening.

Caller 8: Today, we're giving out prepared meals at Astoria Houses and also doing a pop-up food pantry in collaboration with some other mutual aid groups that have sprung up. We have been doing a range of things, everything from grocery boxes, to picking up prescriptions for neighbors. I think it's really shown how important it is for people to step in when our government fails.

Caller 9: I'm in a correctional facility, unfortunate. I've been here for four months. I have not been able to talk to my family, the phones are so high in here, we can't talk to our lawyers. We're in here and it's bad. The commissary is so high. We're not getting the right information of what's really going out there. They're keeping us isolated from what's going on in the world. We're scared here. Guys are getting sick. The officers are getting sick. It's like nobody's really caring about us as prisoners.

Caller 10: Hey, how you doing? It's like-- You remember the old song, everybody's working for the weekend? Now, we're working for the week because the weekends just drag, just trying to break up the monotony.

Caller 11: Friday night, my husband and I order in to change it up, we cook all week. Then, Saturday, we have a big Zoom party with all of our friends. We do horse races on our counter, and then we play different various games over Zoom. Of course, cocktails are involved. That's how we know it's Saturday night.

Caller 12: I'm an actor in a Broadway show or I guess I was. I lost my job on March 12th when Broadway shut down. I think this is the first time in the history of humanity that live theater just doesn't exist right now.

Caller 13: I am a public school educator. I have 200 of my own students and suddenly, I am teaching them remotely. I also have an almost two-year-old who's birthday is next week, and a five-year-old. I often find myself both teaching others and also my own children. This time feels a little bit like I'm in the new mom, newborn phase again, where it's like a sudden, completely new way of life that I'm living.

I'm isolated at home a lot with little to no company, going outside feels very intimidating. I'm providing care to other people, seemingly non-stop.

Caller 14: How are you doing, Brian? I just want to say thank you for joining us. I actually lost my mother to COVID on April 15th. She passed away alone. It's been really hard. I had to quarantine myself because I was the one that actually took her to the hospital, I got a test, I was negative. For around 14 days, I was alone. I was in her house by myself just coping by myself. I just wanted to say that my mother was a beautiful person, an angel, and for me and my siblings. I couldn't actually have a better mother.

Caller 15: Hey. My mom got sick in January. Pretty quickly, I realized that things were not turning out for the better. She passed in May. I always imagined at that point in my life that my community would really swell around me and I would just be like embrace the love, and support. Instead, I had a pretty consistent message of like, "Oh, my God, I'm so sorry for your loss. I can come near you, but remember, we need to say at least six feet away." [laughs]

Caller 16: When I saw George Floyd, when I saw that video, I was appalled, I was hurt. When I saw and I heard him call his mother, I actually came [laughs] into tears because all I could think of is my own son, and how he called me when he needs help and I need to run to his rescue.

Caller 17: Our cry is no justice, no peace. Nonviolent protest is not going to look like peaceful protests, and should not be palatable to you or people in power, but a long time since you marched for the people. It seems you need a reminder. The point of protest is civil disobedience. That includes your curfew, the city's own website so that people will have every opportunity to go home it says nowhere that the police will respond with violence, aggression, or arrest.

It appears that the police are enforcing the law they don't understand. All our video and testimonial evidence shows the police turn into werewolves at 8:00 PM every night. You're worried about if you storefront, help them get boarded up, but don't use robbery as an excuse.

Caller 18: I voted for Trump in 2016. After about a year, I regretted that. I have been embarrassed about how he has conducted himself. Watching a few debates, the two debates with my husband has been very uncomfortable because he is still a Trump supporter.

Caller 19: My wife, and son, and I went to vote on Saturday. We looked at the line, we looked at each other and said, "Okay." We got on the line, it snakes down a city block, and it turned the corner, it went to the end of the next block, and we made it up there in, I guess, a little under two hours. We had a sense of purpose. Democracy worked, and we did what we set out to do.

Caller 20: I was [unintelligible 00:24:04] I joined the party at Grand Army Plaza, it was just a block party. It was all races, all sizes, shapes, ages, were just together, unified and celebratory. I just want to emphasize that it's the truth has prevailed. I think we will all be just better off as an entire country.

Caller 21: I have a lot of conflicts regarding the upcoming holiday. I have seven people that I'm dealing with. Normally, that would be nothing for me. This year, we have my brother-in-law who's 83 years old, and then I have my niece who just had a new baby and my two sons. One of my sons says, "No, no, we're not going to get together. He's not coming down to New Jersey. We have to be cautious." Part of me thought maybe I just won't tell him.

Caller 22: Why do people insist on having a traditional Thanksgiving festivity or Christmas? I understand the impulse to do it, and I'm no different. I'm not trying to shame anyone, but one of the previous callers said she was having a gathering with an 89-year-old elder. Are you serious?

Caller 23: The past eight or nine months have been outrageous. The silver lining to this is that we've been able to spend so much time together and to see you every minute of every day, as a professional, as a mom, as a teacher. I don't think there's enough time or enough opportunity to really say how much I appreciate the fact that you've been able to pull down everything, and then the glue of our family. I love you, and I just wanted to say thank you.

Caller 24: My love for New York City it's a love for my grandma who died of COVID this year in this very city that she loves so much. My grandma came to New York in 1969, from the Dominican Republic. She used to work at a [unintelligible 00:26:14] sanctuary in Brooklyn, and two generations later, I get to live in Brooklyn, in the very city that my grandma never wanted to live. I am in love with the city because being here is a commitment to my grandma who never wanted to leave New York.

Brian: Wow. We've been listening to callers to The Brian Lehrer Show from March to December 2020, compiled and edited by Brian Lehrer Show producer Zoe Azulay. It's the first act in a two-hour Time Capsule Special. Some of you have been calling in with thoughts or feeling sparked by something in the montage that you want the year 2030 to know. 646-435-7280 if you still want to call and we'll start in with your calls right after this.

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This is the WNYC Time Capsule Special for bringing out the old and bringing in the new. As we head into 2021 and leave 2020 behind, we are making a Time Capsule together to document a year that we would mostly rather forget, but it's important for many reasons to remember. Now, let's see what that montage of callers from the year made you think about or feel or remember from 2020. 646-435-7280. We're going to start with Marlin in Morris County. Marlin, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Marlin: Hello. Thank you so much for having me on. The montage really had me thinking about back in March. Before March, we all took the teachers for granted, we took schools for granted. I just remember how important it was for us as parents. I'm a parent of a six-year-old. It was just so important for me to start to learn and start to think about how she learns, what's the best way to teach her, and I really just had so much more appreciation for our teachers.

I think it also gave us a new perspective on the school system and thinking about how our school system is actually operating in the best interest of our students, of our kids, and to think about how we can actually improve that while still taking time to appreciate the teachers and all the hard work that they've been doing for us over all these years-

Brian: Marlin-

Marlin: -[crosstalk] prevented.

Brian: -a great thought that I'm sure a lot of parents can relate to and maybe a lot of teachers are wondering, "Wait, do they still take us for granted?" [laughs] Thank you. That's a great way to start us off. We're going to go to Annie in Fairfield. Next, Annie, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Annie: Hi, Brian. I am so happy to tell you about my dad who died of COVID on April 7th. I'm one of seven and my dad was great. He taught at Stony Brook University for over 52 years. I just feel so badly that we were never able to have any celebration of his great life that he lived. I know I doubt for a second that there is a student of his listening right now because he was a father to seven of us, his three stepchildren and so many, many of his students. That's what this montage really made me think about. Thank you for giving me a moment to talk about my great dad.

Brian: Thank you for doing so, Annie. Thank you very much. Bill in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bill.

Bill: Hi, Brian. I'm sorry. I'm shaking from that. When I heard the healthcare workers, it must have been March or April, talking about the lack of PPE, I just wanted to scream because we're still there. Here we may have built up but there's been no federal leadership on this. We've got the defense production act. We've got the national resources. Other states had months to see what was going on here before it hit them. There's just no reason why we should have shortage of PPE.

There's no reason we should have the federal government telling us that it's going to be over by April. We're going to pack the churches by May and I'm trying not to be partisan, but you can probably hear it. There's just no reason we should be at the worst of it right now. We saw the worst here, and now it's hitting the rest of the country. It frustrates me, it angers me and it just breaks my heart.

Brian: What do you want 2030 to know about all that?

Bill: I want 2030 to know we need to be a community. We need to pull together like we did after 911 when a crisis hits. There's no blue America. There's no red America. We can fight it out the politics on legislation but we have to look out for each other. It can't be about me and this mask is infringing my liberties. We have to take care of each other, Brian. That's the only thing that I can say. That's the biggest mistake that I see that we have made here.

We are, as a country, at least not taking care of each other, not looking out for each other. Our concept of liberty has just become so warped. If we get through this as a country, something tragic is going to happen again and we can't let it happen like this.

Brian: Bill, thank you so much for those thoughts. We'll see how that looks for 2030 to people hearing it then for sure. Mercedes in East Harlem. You're on WNYC. Hi, Mercedes.

Mercedes: Hi, Brian. First-time caller, and happy holidays.

Brian: And to you. What do you want 2030 to know?

Mercedes: I want 2030 to know when my 10-year-old will be 20 years old, and when my 19-year-old will be 29 years old that family must stay together. We went through a very hard time at the beginning of COVID. My father was caught the disease very hard. Thank God, we still have him but it took well, from being sick from the beginning of March to being in the hospital in May, and being in ICU and coming back home on June 11th.

We bringing him home as a family to take care of him even though he was given palliative care, we need to stay together and take care of each other like the previous caller say. At the end of the day, we need our country. We need our doctors. We need to take care of each other. As he said, I want my daughters to know that in America, we are compassionate, we are humble and we always step up to help our next neighbor. Thank you very much and happy holiday

Brian: And to you and beautifully said. Thank you, Mercedes. Joseph in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Joseph.

Joseph: Hey, Brian. How's it going? I'm just calling in because when the pandemic hit, lockdown happened. I'm luckily 29-year-old, healthy man, so I decided to go out and run 10 miles every day for all the people who can't go outside into the world that we're locked in to try to inspire everyone around my community here in Flatbush. I'm running out there and seeing all the homeless people in the streets and people struggling. I decided to like keep that up and I ended up doing that every day. I'm still doing that. I plan to run 10 miles until the pandemic is over.

I also realized being able to go out and do that 10 miles which replaced my old work commute that was an hour and a half to get to my job from where I currently work from Flatbush. I was able to hit that five-mile point and realize, "Wow, I'm so lucky to be able to turn around now and go back to a home that I can stay in while so many people are locked in." At least they're able to be in a home. There's a lot of people outside that are struggling.

I just want everyone to know that this year I'm running for everyone who needs somebody to support them, and we can get through it together with love and determination. Brian, your show is great. I listen to it all the time when I'm folding my laundry in the middle of the day after those runs. It's just a blast to hear you talk to so many people in the community. You're great.

Brian: Joseph, you're great. Thank you very much. One more in this [unintelligible 00:35:32] Mary in Dobbs Ferry, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call and for doing this wonderful show. One of the pieces of the montage that particularly struck me, I'm an Episcopal priest and I had so taken for granted being able to touch people, be able to give people communion and laying on of hands and most of all, being able to visit people in the hospital. Trying to figure out how to give last rites over the telephone for someone who's dying of COVID was really, really difficult.

I have incredible, incredible love and respect for the nurses who would hold the phone in front of somebody so they could see while I gave them last rites. It's still a very difficult thing to process. I appreciate the montage so much. Thank you.

Brian: It may be the most important thing from the [unintelligible 00:36:40] to remember exactly what you just said. Thank you. Brian Lehrer on WNYC with a WNYC Time Capsule special. We'll continue with Brooke Gladstone joining us in a minute.

[music]

Brian: This is WNYC Time Capsule special. I'm Brian Lehrer, as we are wringing out the old and ringing in the new 2020 to '21 with some thoughts that we want 2030 to hear. We will reopen the time capsule in 2030. I wonder what it will sound like to people then. Hey, time capsule. Hey, 2030, here's some sounds of 2020 worth remembering that we had when the pandemic first got so bad it overwhelmed hospitals, as we've been hearing, and frontline healthcare workers who had to both work around the clock to take care of the crush of critically ill and dying patients and deal emotionally with all that death and suffering as well as putting themselves at risk to do so.

Yes, getting sick and dying themselves as a result.

Because of that, a temporary tradition sprung up of everyone at 7:00 PM out their windows every night, applauding and hooting and hollering and playing musical instruments and otherwise making a joyous and grievous noise to thank any healthcare workers who could hear.

[crowd cheering]

Brian: That was going on right outside people's rear windows in New York and elsewhere, the sound of gratitude and how it happened in a unique way in 2020. So did the sound of people uniquely letting off steam. Ask anyone who is around New York City and they will tell you. They heard people drag racing and otherwise gunning their engines like people were not used to hearing on previously crowded city streets, certainly not nearly as much. In the weeks leading up to the 4th of July, there were fireworks not like in a normal year. Some of us thought we had gone to war. All right, 2020 and that's enough of that, as the year of the most intense June of neighborhood fireworks. Anyone could remember many of us never even figured out where they came from all of a sudden in the middle of a pandemic, all these powerful fireworks. On Saturday, November 7th, much of the New York area erupted in sound again this time because in this part of the country that tended to be horrified by Donald Trump. There came a spontaneous, joyous noise when the networks and the associated press had counted enough votes, to have enough math to declare Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election.

[crowd cheering]

Brian: Joe Biden won 61% of the vote in New York State, 57% in New Jersey, and the blue northeast erupted. They're largely in relief. Democracy was seriously challenged in 2020 nonetheless, and even as we make this time capsule, some three weeks before the inauguration, Donald Trump is claiming he really won in a landslide and he's got about 70% of Republican voters believing him according to recent polls.

Listeners, leave someone in 2030 a message about democracy in 2020 and what your hopes or fears are for where our democracy will be by then, 646-435-7280. Here to help us do that is none other than the co-host and managing editor of On The Media, our own Brooke Gladstone. Hi, Brooke. Happy 2021.

Brooke Gladstone: You too, Brian.

Brian: How did you cover on your show the difference between tracking how the election was going and tracking what was happening to democracy itself?

Brooke: Well, we didn't focus too much on how the election was going for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the zone was really flooded there. We talked about the various election narrative, but they hadn't changed very much from what we've covered in the previous three years, although they certainly escalated in sound and theory. Our brief was, basically to track the competing narratives, what they were, and how they were fed out into the system. It was a time to learn really, that what seemed extraordinary, once you put it into context, it wasn't in fact unique.

Certainly, our reactions as a people weren't whether you're talking about pandemics and looking back over centuries of pandemics past the same kind of paranoia, the same kind of confusion. You think that we get smarter as a civilization and we do but when it comes to existential threats, we can regress really fast.

Brian: Now, your show is about many things but its centerpiece, obviously, as it's called on the media is explicitly about the media. How much do you think the big partisan divide all this polarization that was increasing in the US for decades leading up to 2020 media-driven, by the changing media, technology over time? How much was it like from hundreds of channels of cable TV sprouting in the '80s and '90s, starting to drive people into different bubbles and echo chambers, and then the internet and social media pouring gasoline on that particular fire?

Brooke: It's really fascinating because again if you take the 10,000-mile view, you can see that really, the centralization that we had in the mid-20th century was the aberration that the splintered fractured media was the rule. The difference was the technology that our bubbles could be almost impermeable. Generally, what we had is an era where the spaces where we communicated were, again, unregulated as they were in the newspaper age. It didn't need the government's approval. It didn't take huge numbers of people to your site or to just as it didn't to your newspaper, in order to make enough profit to live on.

Back in the days of TVs when things got centralized, it was the cost partly. It was such an expensive medium in terms of the splitting and the nature of the social media business is much more precise than newspapers were or even any former medium, in that it leverages through algorithms, the production of dopamine and other emotion-driven-- It's just impossible to escape this soul-sucking chamber unless you actively switch it off.

Brian: Steven Park Slope is calling with a question for 2030, I think. Hi, Steve. You're on WNYC.

Steven: Hi. I think especially near the end of 2020, President Trump and the Republican Party virtually deliberately degraded the presidency and democracy. My question for 2030 is, what have you done to restore that or I hope, maintain it?

Brian: That's a great question for 2030?

Brooke: What is who done? You mean, the government?

Brian: Yes. Steve's gone but I think he's asking all the people. I think he's asking society after these lessons of 2020.

Brooke: I think that's the biggest lesson of 2020 is how we are unable to retreat back into our complacency and pretend that we didn't see everything that was wrong, the deep cracks in our society, racially, economically, and certainly politically. One thing that became eminently clear it was in the mouth of the president and the mouth of many republican politicians was that they were bracing and clear concessions that having a robust electorate, increasing voter participation in the process would hurt the GOP.

We like to talk about how 70% of the GOP stands in lockstep with Trump in disparaging our electoral process. That may be true, but there's one-third of the country, roughly, I think, maybe between 30% and 40%, are Republican. It still is an express minority, a party that really cannot win if it encouraged voter turnout.

Brian: Yet, in 2020, Republicans won so many state legislators that they will get to gerrymander the districts in so many states again. Hello, 2030 one question I have for you will be, did the popular vote, reflect the actual makeup of Congress, once we get to your year? Let's get one in, hear one more in here before we have to break for the top of the hour at the halfway point. Jason in Greenpoint. You're on WNYC. Hi, Jason.

Jason: Hi, Brian. First-time caller, longtime listener.

Brian: Great. What do you want 2030 to know?

Jason: I wanted to say I work at the farmers market at Grand Army Plaza so I saw the whole scene unfold on election day. It was this great celebration, but it was also this immense sense of relief.

Brian: Just to be clear, you don't really mean on election day, you mean on that Saturday, November 7th, four days later, when the election was called, by the media for Biden?

Jason: Yes, and that it was a party, but it was full of that relief. The joy came from the fact that this would be over. For me, personally, I wasn't celebrating that Biden would be our president and seeing some of the cabinet that's coming in being worried about that. My message to 2030 would be that for a brief moment we had this taste of real democracy, and it is going to take so much more to create real change in the future.,

Brian: Jason, thank you very much. Brooke, I hate to put the-

Brooke: I have a quick question for 2030.

Brian: 2030. We have 30 seconds to go.

Brooke: By 2040, it's predicted that 70% of the country will live in 15 states. That means 70% will be represented by only 30 senators. I'm asking in 2030, what are they going to do to prevent that in 2040?

Will we still be saddled with the electoral college?

Brian: What a great line to end the first hour on, Brooke Gladstone, co-host, the managing editor of On The Media. We'll be listening to you every weekend.

Brooke: I to you every day, Brian. Bye.

[music]

Brian: This is a WNYC Time Capsule special for ringing out the old and ringing in the new. As we head into 2021 and leave 2020 behind, we are making a time capsule together to document a year we would mostly rather forget but is important for many reasons to remember. I'm Brian Lehrer, and we'll reopen the Time Capsule in the year 2030 for whoever's around. For another hour, we'll keep inviting you to leave a message for someone in 2030 with a story or a question.

One thing to remember, 2030, if the media mostly recalls 2020 as the year of the pandemic and grief over people we lost to that, it was also the year that 400 years of grief and struggle for racial equality in the United States also took center stage for people who have lived that reality their whole lives because they had no choice, but also for people who had the luxury of not thinking much about it until Memorial Day 2020 when police officers in Minneapolis got caught on video literally squashing the last breath out of a man named George Floyd who they already subdued on the ground after being caught doing, well, not much at all. Just allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill for which he paid with his life.

The officer, named Derek Chauvin, had his knee on George Floyd's neck for the last eight minutes of George Floyd's life even as Floyd begged Chauvin saying he couldn't breathe with his knee on his neck. At George Floyd's funeral in 2020, the Reverend Al Sharpton gave a eulogy for Floyd that was literal and metaphorical.

Reverend Al Sharpton: We were smarter than the underfunded schools you put us in, but you had your knee on our neck. We could run corporations and not hustle in the street, but you had your knee on our neck. We had creative skills. We could do whatever anybody else could do, but we couldn't get your knee off our neck. What happened to Floyd happens every day in this country, in education, in health services, and in every area of American life. It's time for us to stand up in George's name and say, "Get your knee off our necks.

Brian: Reverend Al Sharpton at the funeral of George Floyd. Of course, there were other police or vigilante killings and other names that it was important to say out loud in 2020. Brianna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Daniel Prude, Ahmad Arbery. Each of those killings seem to lift a veil in a different way on the ongoing story of deadly racism in America. Listeners, I'll pose a question for 2030 for our Time Capsule, our message in an audio bottle for 2030.

Hello, 2030. Did policing change in the last decade? Did it figure out a way to not do this anymore? Did a new generation of officers come on board with new values, driven by societal change? Did they manage to keep the streets safe from both civilian criminals, and civilian crime did go up too in 2020, but also from their own excesses and blind spots and those of the politicians who make their rules?

I'd like to invite those of you with children or grandchildren who are the kids today to leave a message for them about racial justice in 2020, and how they might measure progress in 2030. Anyone want to give that a shot? 646-435-7280. Again, I'd like to invite those of you with children or grandchildren who are kids today to leave a message for them about racial justice in 2020, and how they should measure progress in 2030. Who wants to be heard on that 10 years from now? 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280.

As your calls are coming in, with us now, our WNYC's Kai Wright, host of The United States of Anxiety heard live on Sunday nights in 2020 and 2021 at six o'clock on Sunday nights on WNYC, and anytime on The United States of Anxiety podcast, and Gwynne Hogan, WNYC and Gothamist reporter who covered the protests for racial justice that broke out in New York, as they did all over the country, after George Floyd was killed.

Hi, Kai. Hi, Gwynne.

Kai: Hey, Brian.

Gwynne: Hey, Brian.

Brian: Kai, you were writing and speaking about racial justice long before anyone ever heard of George Floyd or Derek Chauvin. What changed in 2020? Anything, or did more of white America just get forced to notice it?

Kai: I will say that it is in all of that 25, whatever years it's been, of doing journalism about racial justice. It is certainly the first time I have seen this level of widespread acknowledgment, not just of racism period, but this very particular point that racism infects every part of our lives. We're talking about policing, but we've also learned it in health and we've seen the differential, the disparity in who's impacted by the coronavirus. We've seen it in jobs. We've seen it in housing, the housing patterns that lead to differential impacts. We've seen it in voting.

We're now seeing it in the impunity of who has to die on death row versus who gets to have a free press for their crimes from the president right now. We've seen it just in this huge swath of life, and there's a really unique number of people who recognize that breadth of it. I think my question for 2030 in this is, history tells us that when we've seen dramatic change from moments like this, it's happened pretty fast after we've made contact with it, and what has been really important is how long white people specifically have been willing to sit in the discomfort that this acknowledgment requires or brings upon them.

Each time in our history when we've seen this widespread acknowledgment of racial injustice, and we've seen some response to it and the conflict and the tension and the pain that that causes, and we see progress, but where the progress stops and often reverses is when white people decide they can't sit in that any longer. My question for 2030 will be, was it different this time? Did people sit in it longer than they did in the '60s, than they did in the 1860s? How long are people going to sit in it this time, and long enough to make real change?"

Brian: That's my question too, as it turns out. Gwynne, as a reporter who was out there as the protests broke out, even in the pandemic when people were otherwise trying not to gather in crowds, what's the first sound or image or feeling that keeps staying with you today six months, seven months later? I know you brought us some examples of sound from those days.

Gwynne: So much, Brian. Obviously, I had been covering the pandemic day in and day out for several months. Then there was a bit of a low as our hospitals settled down and cases went down. We were all still very isolated. After George Floyd was killed and the first protest started to happen, there was this catharsis on so many levels because I think people had been so separate and in their own little worlds, and all of a sudden everyone was together. I think the pandemic very much fueled the massive day after day after day protests that we saw.

I covered the first night which was a smaller protest. It was a Thursday. I've covered dozens of protests before. I've been a reporter in New York City for a while. It's on the steps of city hall, very planned, but this was so spontaneous. I saw violent arrests. Dozens of people were arrested. I think three dozen people were arrested that first night. I remember thinking, "This feels so different, and I don't know what's going to happen." Then, of course, the night after that was the big confrontation at Barclays.

I brought you some tape of Assemblywoman, Diana Richardson, right after she'd been pepper-sprayed at Barclays. There was a huge group of people that came out to just demonstrate peacefully, and they were confronted by police officers in riot gear and pepper spray. This is right after, like I said, right after she had been maced. Here she is.

Assemblywoman Diana: We're not here to fight. We have suffered enough abuse. We have suffered enough by law enforcement around this country only to come out here and peacefully protest to have our rights violated by the NYPD.

Gwynne: As you know, that night sparked all these scuffles, and with police and protesters were injured, and there was police property that was damaged. It built and built and built from there. There was a standoff in East Flatbush the next night that I was at for several hours. Then, obviously, we know that there was the night of looting in Manhattan that I was there for, which was, like otherworldly, like I can't that night. I have another cut I'd like to play if it's okay, Brian.

Brian: Yes, please.

Gwynne: We had crossed over the Manhattan Bridge, and we're walking through Soho, and police had started to try to cut groups of protesters apart and divide them so that there were smaller and smaller groups. As the groups got smaller, and they had these individual confrontations with different groups of police, it got fringier. I don't really know how to describe it, but it felt like it was changing from something that was peaceful to there were more and more people who seem to want to vandalize or do damage. That's when some demonstrators were smashing glass, and it felt like it was leaning towards a potential looting situation.

I watched groups of people try to stop it. If somebody had smashed a window, they would run-up to the window and put their bodies in front of the window, saying, "Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this." This woman, Samantha Williams Dale, I spoke to her right after she had put her body in front of a group of people that wanted to loot a store. Here she is.

Samantha: Because right now, if they have that as a picture, that we're looting, that's going to be the main story, and that's not the main story right here. The story right here, we need justice. Defund the police, give education the money, give us better healthcare, and probably Black people won't be so mad.

Brian: Gwynne, I have a question for you about that scene that you described, as well as the clip. Did it feel like for you as an experienced reporter on protest, as you said you are, a new expression of both protest and citizenship, or protest of course is an expression of citizenship, but different kinds of citizenship, mingling together there and people like her?

Gwynne: Absolutely. I guess my perception from the time that I've been a reporter in New York was, protests, they were pre-planned, and there was a parade route. There was permission asked, and there were dozens of organizations with lots of political connections that were organizing them. There was nothing canned about what happened this summer. It was this spontaneous explosion of anger and sadness and hope, all at once, and that was really amazing to watch. I was constantly in awe and shocked and surprised by what I was witnessing.

Brian: Kai, what are you thinking, as you're hearing all this? You want to get in on this?

Kai: I'm thinking about how beautiful a place New York City is. I didn't grew up in New York, I grew up in the Midwest. People will, outside of New York, will think of it as, "Oh, it's this chaotic and distant place where people are so disconnected from each other, and all of this stuff," and it's the exact opposite of the truth. As we all know who live here, it's a city full of people who are ready to step up and take care of each other and manage crisis as its unfolding, whether it's just helping each other find their way on the subway, or it's managing a moment of conflict in front of cops while there's a protest playing out. There's just so many individual New Yorkers who have been willing to step up. That's the beauty of this year, I will say. It's just this the number of people who have stepped up for each other and for the city that is inspiring. That's what was inspiring summer about the Black Lives Matter protest to me.

Brian: Adele in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Adele.

Adele: Hi, how are you? Thank you for having me on.

Brian: Good. How are you? Sure. What do you have for 2030?

Adele: I'm happy to be alive. I'm talking about 2030. I'm going to give it some attitude, though. My question for 2030 is, are we going to maintain the momentum? I think that's something that we've seen, like an ebb and a flow, especially for civil justice and civil rights and empowerment of our freedom, as Americans, period. That's my question. Are we going to maintain the momentum, and maintain the expectation that we have currently in this day?

Brian: Perfect, and thank you for the attitude.

Adele: Thank you.

Brian: Elizabeth in Albany, you're on WNYC. Hi, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Hi, how are you?

Brian: Good. How are you? What have you got for 2030?

Elizabeth: I just wanted to leave a comment just because you're talking about George Floyd, and you mentioned how there are so many names that shouldn't be forgotten. Andre Hill was a man who was just fatally shot by police in Columbus, Ohio. I read it just a bit. That was the 96 Black man to be shot by the hands of police since George Floyd in May, and it's heartbreaking.

Brian: Elizabeth, thank you very much. It's unfortunate, Kai, that there seem to be new names all the time.

Kai: Yes, it's almost weekly. It's sometimes it feels like-- One of the interesting things about the year, though, is then again, on this score is that the phrase 'defund the police' is now part of the lexicon. I think one of the questions for 2030-- Because we'll continue to have these, and they'll continue to be new names. Every time those names come up, some group of people are going to think, "What about this defund the police thing?" Setting aside the debate over the exact of the policy one way or the other, the point is that, that is a brand new conversation. If you, 12 months ago, walked around the city or the country and said that phrase, most people would have no idea what you're talking about, or would have very strong and uninformed opinions about it. Now there is a sophisticated conversation going on about whether or not we have spent too much money on policing, and it leads to this Black death or not. That is something that has changed in 2020, for sure.

Brian: We're making a time capsule for 2030 here on WNYC. We're making it together, and we'll continue in a minute.

[music]

Brian: As we continue on WNYC, making a time capsule together. I'm Brian Lehrer. If you're just joining us, this is a WNYC special for ringing out the old and ringing in the new as we head into 2021 and leave 2020 behind. We are making this time capsule to document the year that we would mostly rather forget but is important for many reasons to remember, and will we open the time capsule in the year 2020.

We have Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater, coming up a little later in the hour. We continue right now with my colleagues, Kai Wright host of The United States of Anxiety, and WNYC and Gothamist News reporter, Gwynne Hogan, who's been out covering all kinds of things this year. At the risk of making Gwynne blush, she had the courage to be one of the first reporters out to cover Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. Was it Elmhurst or was it at a different hospital?

Gwynne: No. Sorry, it was actually at a different hospital, Brian.

Brian: It was a hospital where a lot of people--

Gwynne: [unintelligible 01:08:17] Brooklyn. South Brooklyn.

Brian: I thought I got that mixed up. Nevertheless, it was early in the pandemic when nobody knew how safe it was to go out, and even as a reporter, cover the horrific scenes at the hospitals that were breaking out in New York City. Listeners, we have a particular caller question on the table for another few minutes, with Kai and Gwynne inviting those of you with children or grandchildren who are kids today, to leave a message for them about racial justice in 2020, and how they should measure progress in 2030. Who else wants to give that a shot? 646-435-7280. Before we take another call, we have some people holding on and waiting.

Gwynne, you have one more clip of tape from your reporting this year, right?

Gwynne: Oh, yes. I just wanted to tell you about this other night that really stands out in my mind from the first week of demonstrations after George Floyd was killed. I don't know if you remember, Brian, but there was a group of protesters that were trapped on the Manhattan Bridge for a while, and I was with them that night. This was a few days in. We had seen all kinds of violent altercations in the days before, and so there was this anticipation that violence could happen. As the group marched across the bridge, they were met by hundreds of officers who had formed a wall, preventing them from leaving the bridge. The demonstrators stood there for two hours, maybe three hours. They linked arms. They started chanting. It felt like they were preparing for battle. They took steps forward. They decided they were going to rush the barricade. Meanwhile, police had surrounded us from behind, and there were also police lining the walls of the side of the bridge. They could jump over the fence if they wanted to. It was very, and it felt like a tinderbox about to explode. Eventually, a few of the people that had just ended up randomly leading this group, brokered, convinced everyone to retreat, and they convinced the police to let them leave the bridge peacefully. They had this very tense to kind of bartering at the front of the line.

As they retreated, they ended up retreating without any physical violence. I talked to this one guy named Albert Powell, he was much older than most of the demonstrators who are in their teens and early 20s. He was an older guy in his 40s or 50s, I don't exactly remember, but he had convinced people not to rush the barricade, to walk away from the altercation. Here, he talked to me about why.

Albert: We cannot lose another life. No matter what, while I'm out here and while doing this, we're not going to lose any more live.

Gwynne: It highlighted to me this intergenerational thing that was happening, and just how people were really watching out for one another in those days.

Brian: Ivan in Dallas, Texas, you're on WNYC. Hello from New York, Ivan.

Ivan: Hello. Hi, thank you so much for your show.

Brian: Thank you for participating. Go ahead.

Ivan: Oh, you're welcome. I was just going to ask in 2030 whether there's been a national guidelines for police use of force, because I think it's like the virus, there has to be a national view of it in order for it to really take hold and prove anything.

Brian: That's a good question to put on the table. Thank you. Deborah in Putnam County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Deborah.

Deborah: Brian, I feel like I'm speaking with an old friend. Thank you for listening. I'm speaking to the year 2030 as the ultimate optimist, and I wanted to respond to Kai Wright ask about the stickiness of racial justice and our advancements, and recognizing that things don't change with a snap of a finger or a flip of a switch. I just wanted to share with you that I am in the business of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We have started to have deep conversations about change management.

First, starting with self-reflections about whiteness and privilege, and how systemic racism has been embedded into our thought processes without us even recognizing it, and to forgive ourselves for what we don't understand and our blind spots, and working towards how we can have the conversations and speak up to make change. I'm hoping as the ultimate optimist, that in 2030, as we listen back to this, there has been a great change because we've looked inside of ourselves as far, as what has been going on for hundreds of years, and be able to actually have made change because of our humbleness. Thank you so much for listening.

Brian: Kai.

Kai: I cheer that optimism, and I hope to look up in 2030 and that it was true. I certainly agree that the first step is we've got to be honest with ourselves. There's a ton of work like that happening now, and that's a big difference. Let's see if it continues.

Brian: Gwynne, I'm going to let you go. We have Oskar Eustis coming up, and he's going to jump on to the line that you're on, so a little technical behind the scenes. I'm pulling the curtain on the juggling that we're doing. Thanks for your amazing reporting this year and the three clips that you shared with us tonight, and I'm going to take one more for Kai. Tim in the Bronx. You're on WNYC. Hi, Tim.

Tim: Hello.

Brian: Hi, Tim.

Tim: I just wanted to stress. Can you hear me?

Brian: Yes, I can.

Tim: Okay, terrific. I just wanted to stress that with regard to a police reform, that a magic bullet that politicians often seek is just simply flooding the departments with minorities, to correct racial injustices between the community and the departments. I want to stress that big cities like New York City, for example, have had, for the last 30 years, majority-minority police departments. That is to say that most of the cops walking the street inflicting the injustices upon minority communities are themselves Black or Hispanic, most of them.

A little over 55% of New York City's department is now composed of racial minorities. I wanted to say that, basically, you had to do something much more substantive than just simply flooding departments with minority faces to correct the injustices that are very inveterate in most police departments was about racial injustice and violations of civil rights and civil liberties on the part of the police department.

Second of all, I wanted to share very briefly a very fascinating article on police injustice, and that very problem. It's called Criminals with Badges by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts. It's a very fascinating read on the problem. I know I don't have a lot of time, but I think that it's worthwhile actually checking that out. It's Criminals with Badges by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts. Thank you.

Brian: Thanks for being efficient with that template. I will ask you, what do you hope gets done by 2030 that would represent real reform to you, because it sounds like you're thinking about this issue a lot? Oh, he's gone.

Kai, what are you thinking about that?

Kai: Well, one, I want to echo Tim, he's exactly right. The answer of diversifying police forces goes back, what, 20 years at this point, and it's happened, and it still hasn't created the change. I think this is what I meant about the defund the police conversation earlier, setting aside that slogan at this point. It represents a shift in thinking we've seen in 2020, from, what are the various technocratic things that can be done inside police departments to, wait, do we need to do something fundamentally different? Have we put too much in these police departments in terms of how we manage our society around them?

Is it not about reform, but about fundamentally changing both the way we think about how we manage threat and danger and risk in society, and in how we take care of each other outside of a punitive framework? I think that's a shift. There are more people who think that way. There's more meaningful conversation in that register than we've seen before. The question for 2030 will be is, did that go somewhere, or did it tamp down with the Democratic administration?

Brian: The last question for you building on that, as Joe Biden takes the presidency, is there a role for Washington in this, or is this police department by police department, because police departments are under local control primarily?

Kai: Well, that's true. There are with many things, our health departments, for instance, are under local control. We've learned in the pandemic similarly, that nonetheless, a national federal leadership on something that affects the whole country is important. Even if it's about keeping the issue front and center, and how federal dollars are directed to incentivize certain things and decentralize other things, even if it's that, that's where where federal leadership can play a role. I'll say, we're not off to a promising start. Both Joe Biden and Barrack Obama have taken an opportunity to say, "Hey, hey, enough with this conversation about policing already." That is not a promising start for the next Democratic administration, but there's absolutely a role for the federal government.

Brian: We will see in the next 10 days, 10 weeks, 10 months, and 10 years as we close out this portion of the time capsule, whether real change comes to policing in America, and whether, as Kai put it before, white people in America can continue to sit with the discomfort and not really do anything, or enough about racial equality in so many ways in our society.

Kai Wright hosts The United States of Anxiety 6:00 PM live on Sunday nights on WNYC and The United States of Anxiety podcast anytime. Kai, thanks a lot.

Kai: Thank you, Brian.

Brian: Up next, messages from the performing arts, which, as we speak here, at the cusp of a new year, are basically dead in the water in the United States. A message from the performing arts, including from Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater for 2030. Stay with us.

[music]

Brian: This is WNYC Time Capsule special for ringing out the old and ringing the new. We have one more segment to go as we head into 2021 and leave 2020 behind, making a time capsule together to document the year that we would mostly rather forget but is important for many reasons to remember. We'll reopen the time capsule in the year 2030. We've got one final invitation for you to leave a message for someone in 2030 with a story or a question. The invitation this time is for your story of being a performing artist in 2020, or being someone who often goes out to see live performing arts in a year when our beloved forms of live music and live theater and live dance and live comedy, and even just gathering together live to sit in a dark room with strangers and watch a movie together, came to a crashing halt. If you work in the performing arts of any kind, we invite you now to leave a message in our time capsule. Tell 2030 what it was like when a virus forced all the stages to go dark. How did you cope, and what do you hope the arts in 2030 will be like? Back to the old normal or something that is new? 646-435-7280.

Again, tell 2030 what it was like for you as a performing artist or a regular audience member when the virus forced all the stages to go dark. How did you cope and what do you hope the arts in 2030 will be like? Back to the old normal or something that is new? 646-435-7280. Arts patrons and art purveyors. 646-435-7280.

To help us with this, we've got one more special guest, Oskar Eustis, creative director of the Public Theater. Thanks for the time, Oskar, and sorry it's under these circumstances, but welcome back to WNYC.

Oskar: It's a pleasure to be here, Brian. Thanks.

Brian: I've read that you got coronavirus in March and spent five days in the hospital and emerged into a changed world. If that's accurate, what was the world you found upon your release?

Oskar: It's completely accurate, Brian. There is an uncanny resemblance to the first episode of The Walking Dead. I went into the hospital on March 10th, and the theaters all shut down on March 12th. When I came out, there was no more live theater. My theater and every other theater in the city, and soon the country, had shut down. It was extremely disorienting. I've been in the same world that the rest of us have been in for the last nine months.

Brian: Before we talk about the impact on our culture, can you talk about the impact on your workers, and by extension, all live performers and their crews?

Oskar: The news that you just announced that President Trump has signed the relief bill is incredibly important because it includes something called the Save Our Stages Act, which is the largest federal relief program for the performing arts in history. $15 billion that are going to go to independent music venues, orchestras, theaters, to try to help us through this next period of time. That's extraordinary because the field has been devastated. [inaudible 01:22:49] running crew member in the country instantly unemployed on March 12th. Most of this [inaudible 01:23:00]

Brian: Oskar, I don't know if you're moving positions, but your line is going in and out a little bit in terms of quality. Just letting you know in case there's anything you can do to stabilize it.

Oskar: Thanks. I'll do the best I can here. I'm in rural Minnesota right now, so the signal may not be great.

Brian: Someplace to be around New Year's, rural Minnesota. I won't even ask you the temperature. I know some music fans and theater fans who've been taking advantage of the new world of live streaming concerts and live streaming plays and other things. To what extent has that been an opportunity for new forms of expression and offering the performing arts to new audiences? To what extent just a pale imitation of the real thing?

Oskar: We at the public have been doing digital work. We've been streaming Zoom plays. We've made a movie. We've done a beautiful collaboration with WNYC on our Richard II. I can tell you this, Brian, we are never giving up the audience that we've been able to reach. It has been staggering to us that we have reached people, not only all over the country, but all over the world. The access that that's allowed has been spectacular. It, however, in no way replaces the fundamental act of live performance. Which is not only about the likeness of the performance, it's about the audience.

It's about the collective experience of the artists and audience breathing the same air, sharing the same space, and creating a sense of community together. We have missed that desperately, not only as a field. I think we're missing it as a culture. There's going to be a huge desire to return to that when we're back.

Brian: Oscar, hang around if you will and take some phone calls with me from people who are performing artists or otherwise work in the performing arts, and people who miss going.

Deborah in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Deborah. Thank you so much for calling in.

Deborah: Hi. How are you doing, Brian? I've called in before. I've loved you for many, many years. I lived in New York since 1995.

Brian: Oh, thank you. Thank you for your years for so long. Thank you for calling in tonight. What you got?

Deborah: Well, I told everybody that I'm using JamKazam, which is software which enables musical artists to perform remotely together with each other because there's no lag involved. If you use Zoom, there's a lag.

Brian: I'm so glad you brought that up. We even dealt with that on the show back in May when Marsalis was a guest. He had just produced a piece called, I think The Pandemic Blues was the title, with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. They did it by each of the members. That would be maybe 17-

Deborah: I've heard them play.

Brian: -musicians or something like that, recording their parts separately at home and send them in. They must have had very good metronomes.

Deborah: Oh, I had to do that too.

Brian: It sounded tight. At that time, as recently as May, there wasn't the technology that you just described where people could play music together and be in sync.

Deborah: Exactly.

Brian: That's great, Deborah. Thank you. Oh, did you want to add something, Deborah? Go ahead.

Deborah: You'll remember me. I'm a totally blind person. I think for me, I had to have supportive musicians who are willing to work with me and help me turn on my computer and everything remotely because I can't see it all. To help me do this is fantastic. I also want to mention a name of someone who was on 60 Minutes Tonight. His name is Matthew Whitaker. I know of him. He's a wonderful, very talented jazz musician who was on 60 Minutes Tonight because he's so phenomenal. He's only 19 years old, but he has the same ability. Well, he's much better than me. When I was four, I was playing with both hands too on the piano, but he is phenomenal. I want to put that name down.

Brian: Very good. Thank you very much. I love that because we've been putting down so many names of people we've lost in one way or another in 2020. I'm glad Deborah, you put the name of somebody to look for in the future, Matthew Whitaker.

Let me go next to Dan in the East Village. Dan, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Dan: Hi, Brian. First, oh my God, yes. I have to be another one of those people that thank you for your mind and your voice during all this. We have a surgeon general. I think we need a journalist general. Maybe you should be the journalist general or some position for the country. Aside from that--

Brian: I think journalism would be worse if one person was in charge of it, but go ahead.

Dan: [laughs] I'm someone who is in the participatory art world, which involves a lot of bringing a lot of people into being a part of something that is oftentimes performance so on and so forth. Watching things together is great. We need the plays and the performers and the stories and the music. We have to remember that these are the products of culture. Culture is actually how we interact. These are the things that we produce as a result of that. I'm hoping that after this, we become more aware of how we interact together, and how important it is to be aware of that.

We should spend more time when we can making things together, and doing things like that, and valuing that process whether it ends up being showcased or not. If we don't do that, we're not going to end up having the performing arts and the stories and the music and those cultural products that we love so much if we don't keep aware of the fact that it's how we interact together, which is the important part.

Brian: Thank you so much for that big thing, Dan. We really appreciate it.

Oskar Eustis, what are you thinking about either of the first two callers?

Oskar: Well, I think what our young man just said is exactly correct. That our tendency as a culture is to think of art as a commodity, as an object that can be purchased or consumed. The reality is that the art is about an interrelationship between people. It's about a set of relationships, and with a tipping point in this country, but we're either going to learn that lesson in some fundamental way that we all need to work together and value that community, or the country is in terrible trouble. As a culture or as the cultural wing of the country, I think we have to lead the way. If I have my druthers, the line between professional and amateur artistry should be blurred. We should see everybody as being able to contribute artistry, as something that is part of every human being's DNA, not as something that belongs to a specialized elite. It's just some of us are privileged enough to get to spend our lives practicing so we get better at it. It's something inherent in every human being.

Brian: How could you do that? I'm sure for you as artistic director of the Public Theater, when you want to put on a show there, you're looking for the best, most accomplished people, or most talented or skilled people or whatever adjective you want to use, to do it.

Oskar: Let me hold out the example of our Public Works program, founded by the brilliant [unintelligible 01:31:04] and now run by the equally brilliant [unintelligible 01:31:07]. This is a program which every year produces at the Delacorte in Central Park, as part of free Shakespearean in the Park, a 200 person pageant. A Shakespearean musical that puts Tony Award-winning actors side by side, with people from the fortune society, from the Brownsville senior senator. From dream yard in the Bronx, from the Center for Family Life. From the military Resilience Project. All of these people are people who, in many cases, have never been on stage before, but when we work together, we create something that's not only great social justice, it's great art. I just urge everybody who hasn't seen a public work show to come to the Delacorte this summer because we will be back. It was revolutionary for me and opening my eyes to the fact that talent means many, many different things. It can be expressed in many different ways.

Brian: Sarah in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sarah.

Sarah: Oh, hi, Brian. I'm so happy to call in and share. I'm a theater teacher in Brooklyn, and my husband also teaches, and we perform. You can imagine when schools closed, we just felt like, what are our tools? What do I show up for my students in teaching them theater? We just became so creative, suddenly taking a hold of all these new tools. I have a puppetry background, and so does my husband. We quickly realized that a Zoom box was a small theater. That was our little stage. Then we began to teach our students so many different things. My students have done projects in podcasting. They now create videos as part of their regular schoolwork, which is something that all actors need to know now, is how to create their own videos and how to post them on various sites. He even ended up doing a summer theater camp where the kids are all socially distanced. They did their whole production, really filmed video in the round. Then again, they create the audience, the community gets to share in this work. We do the work of theater, no matter what the circumstances. Creativity doesn't get shut down.

Brian: Yes. Sarah, do you think that your students might, as a silver lining, be better off in their future creative endeavors for having gone through this experience this year, hopefully, of course, with a provider that is very temporary, but will have been better off in the future creatively for having gone through this?

Sarah: I'm not sure if they know it now, but the skills that I'm putting into their hands, and that we're putting into their hands, are really the skills that they will need. They may not be thinking in their career mode, but as they move forward as artists, like Oscar says, in whatever ways they create and they find their audience, now they're going to have these tools. These tools can very easily bridge the gap between amateur and professional now. It's really about finding your audience and speaking your voice.

Brian: Sarah, thank you so, so much.

Hey, Oscar, have there been any meaningful cultural expressions of the human experience in 2020 that you would like to point to, or is it still too early for that?

Oskar: For me, it's too early, and I have my head in the sand. I'm doing everything from lobbying for this federal Relief Program to try and ensure the survival of my institution. I have been impressed by the numerous theaters that have come up with ways of performing radio plays, or zoom plays. They have been extraordinary, but really, I think we're also all having a forced timeout, in which we're needing to examine our values. Examine what's really important to us and know that when we come back, we need to come back to a world where the theater really is for everybody. We haven't done that as well as we should, as a culture. The theater, along with so many other aspects of this culture, has drifted into separating into a theater for the elite and no theater for the many. We have to change that if we're going to fulfill the theatrical, the promise of the theater.

Brian: Bram in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bram.

Bram: Hi, Is this me? Good morning, Brian.

Brian: Yes. It is, yes. Did I get your name right? Is it Bram?

Bram: Yes, it's Bram, that's right. I run a small theater. It's an equity theater up in Westchester, and so many blessings I had in the house of the public, and Oscars, and it's just such an important place where so many great values. The apple plays and so many things that came here, so God bless you, sir. I want to say this quickly. We are unusual in the Western world for having no National Theater. I want to say also that, we've cut out all the funding for the arts in the schools. I know people high up in the [unintelligible 01:36:54] who, while the pandemic has been raging have said, "Well, 75% of the theaters are not coming back." As a guy from Westchester just a month or two ago, Westchester board [unintelligible 01:37:06] after 40 years, packed it in.

I run the schoolhouse theater, it's the oldest theater that's been performing equity shows in Westchester. We've been zooming since June, everything from Beckett to the [unintelligible 01:37:22]. We're doing our best to keep our audience and our actors going, but I wonder if Mr. Eustis thinks that that 75% prediction is poppycock, or real?

Oskar: Well, look, there's no question that theaters all over the country are in terrible shape right now. Nobody's had any earned income for nine months, and we still are a society that floats on earned income. What is exciting about this is, I don't believe that theaters are going to go away, because I believe the impulse that makes people make theater is not going to go away. All over the country, you're going to see theaters who are finding the resources to keep going. What our opportunity is, is to make a plea to the federal government to take the arts seriously. During the Great Depression, the WPA and the Federal Theater Project were enormous investments by the federal government in the arts as a way of countering unemployment. They had a spectacular economic impact, but also an artistic impact, and maybe that moment has come again for us.

Brian: Bram, thank you very, very much. Oscar Eustis, I want to thank you very, very much. You're a constant inspiration to a lot of people. At this moment where we need some combination of inspiration and comfort and hope, I think you've provided some for us on this show. Thank you very much for joining us.

Oskar: Well, that's what hearing your voice always does for me, Brian. Thank you so much.

Brian: Thank you very much. Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater. Thanks, everyone for listening to and contributing to our 2020 Time Capsule for 2030 on to 2021, with the vaccines and other ways of hope, and thanks in advance to anyone listening to this when we open this time capsule in the year 2030. I'm Brian Lehrer.

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