Episode 435
with Lindy West, Kirsten Johnson, and Leyla McCalla
Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello chat about the movies they've watched countless times; New York Times opinion writer and bestselling author Lindy West unpacks why she's known as the official hater of "Love, Actually;" filmmaker Kirsten Johnson comes to terms with the life, death, and legacy of her father through her Netflix documentary "Dick Johnson is Dead;" and folk singer Leyla McCalla brings the musicality of Langston Hughes' poetry to life with "Song for a Dark Girl" from her recently re-released album Vari-Colored Songs.
Lindy West
Author
Lindy West is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and bestselling author of The Witches Are Coming, as well as Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman which she adapted into Shrill, a Hulu comedy series. Her latest book, Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema, is both a love letter and a break-up note all in one: to the films that shaped us and the ones that ruined us. Website • Twitter
Kirsten Johnson
Documentary Filmmaker
Filmmaker and cinematographer Kirsten Johnson is known for her camera work on Citizenfour, as well as her acclaimed film Cameraperson. Her latest film, Dick Johnson is Dead, is a darkly funny and wildly imaginative love letter from a daughter to a father. She stages inventive and fantastical ways for her father to die while hoping that cinema might help her bend time, laugh at pain and keep her father alive forever. Website • Watch Dick Johnson is Dead on Netflix
Leyla McCalla
Multi-Instrumentalist Songwriter
Deeply influenced by traditional Creole, Cajun and Haitian music, as well as by American jazz and folk, Leyla McCalla’s music is at once earthy, elegant, soulful and witty — it vibrates with three centuries of history, yet also feels strikingly fresh, distinctive and contemporary. Leyla’s debut album, Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes, was named 2013’s Album of the Year by the London Sunday Times and Songlines for its haunting mixture of music and message. “Her voice is disarmingly natural, and her settings are elegantly succinct…her magnificently transparent music holds tidings of family, memory, solitude and the inexorability of time: weighty thoughts handled with the lightest touch imaginable,” wrote The New York Times. A limited release at the time, the album saw it’s re-release in October 2020 from Smithsonian Folkways Records, its topics only amplified by the year’s social and political unrest. “[The album] is an illuminating conversation between artists both past and present, and balm for the soul,” said Bandcamp. Website • Twitter • Spotify
