Alec visits Lorne Michaels in his office at Rockefeller Center – the same office he’s had since 1975, when he created Saturday Night Live. Michaels and Alec talk about what led to SNL, and Michaels early years doing subversive political satire on Canadian radio. Alec also talks with writer Erica Jong and her daughter Molly Jong-Fast as they spar about sex and the legacy of the feminist movement.
Alec talks with Kristen Wiig – a breakout Saturday Night Live cast member who says she loves performing, but admits there’s also a “big part of me that’s just like: don’t look at me.” Alec visits talk show legend Dick Cavett at his home in Montauk, Long Island. Over iced tea, Cavett shares memories from five decades in entertainment.
In this episode, Stephen Dubner focuses on an experimental procedure called the fecal transplant. This procedure is sort of combination of organ transplant and blood transfusion that may present a viable way to treat not only intestinal problems but also obesity and a number of neurological disorders. We'll talk to two doctors at the vanguard of this procedure and a patient who says it changed his life. Also: we've all heard our share of poignant and loving eulogies, but what if the deceased was a real jerk?
The first part of this episode, Stephen Dubner looks at this and other examples of weird recycling. We hear the story of MedWish, a Cleveland non-profit that sends unused or outdated hospital equipment – from gauze and tongue depressors to beds and x-ray machines – to hospitals in poor countries. We also hear Intellectual Ventures founder Nathan Myhrvold describe a new nuclear-power reactor that runs on radioactive waste. Also in this hour: we look at the strange moments when knowledge is not power.
