Jeff Holmes: evaluation

Transcript context

…I don’t see the listened-to numbers. The Ruth Scurr one on Napoleon in 18th-century history was excellent. I’m not sure it’s incredibly popular, but that’s probably underrated. David Salle — a lot of people just are not connected to the visual arts and painting. That’s probably an underrated episode. Richard Prum, the bird guy — I thought he was one of the very best of the year. People like Chris Blattman loved it, but I’m not sure in terms of numbers. I thought we had these three in a row — Sarah Parcak, Dana Gioia, Shadi Bartsch — the three best CWTs in a row ever, and I hope people realize they got that from us. I think my two picks would be Richard Prum, which definitely underperformed a little bit. I think people maybe just said, “Ornithology, birds — what do I care?” But you’re really missing quite a lot by skipping that episode. The other one, I would submit, is Dana Gioia. For me, the thing that unites some of the very good ones — I would count Ruth Scurr in this as well, but Prum, Gioia — they all had such passion and enthusiasm, and they so clearly still loved what they were doing, that it is just impossible not to pick up on that enthusiasm and decide, “I think I should . . .” After I listened to Prum, I started looking at all the birds in my backyard. I have 20 varieties of birds in my backyard. Who would have thought? Gioia — I felt like my life was impoverished because I couldn’t appreciate the things on a level that . . . He just seems like a person who consumes it. You call him an information billionaire, and it’s exactly right. He seems to have this wealth that he knows how to use. Listening to those was wonderful. Dana Gioia, along with, possibly, Niall Ferguson — he’s the guest we’ve had where you can ask him literally anything, and he has a good, coherent answer. There aren’t many guests like that. I appreciate that he’s one of them. He’s to the point with it as well.…

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