High Anxiety

About a month before she turned 103, this is the last one I'll upload here. I wish I could've done so much of a better job. I'll post the rest from this 10 year trajectory on soundcloud — it's wild hearing her change, knowing the lady inside is hardly different at all, the soul the heart the real brain. But things start to come out differently — and the person recognizes the differ...

The feeling over here is "wrap stuff up!" Will upload the collection of phone calls over deteriorating time on soundcloud. This is one of them from when Grandma was about 101. https://soundcloud.com/adamvalenlevinson

ok, this is going to take far more than I've got left to make this not worse than nothing. huge apologies. i'll upload all the files to soundcloud because you can just upload a bunch of things at once and then... yknow... they'll be there, hopefully in chronological order just if you want to spend any more time with grams — sorry for not editing more of my bs out better. comic timing h...

If these have started uploading, it means you have outlived the hosts of this podcast, such as it was. Grandma died in 2023, Adam in 2024. But I think the both of us would've still wanted to put them out there because... um... help me think of the right words. Poop? I think the word is poop. There's a a bunch of long sessions from our first round of doing these in 2014. Then some more over...

this was one of my grandma's helpers, talking about how she would be sad to lose her. i think it's good to hear from june (happy june btw)— sorry all of this came off the rails so hard

Losing the thread guys — I wish I had the energy to chop it up, but the energy goes into a cycle of not being able to make even the tiniest choices, so it's either here's a thing if there's one person out there who'd click... or here's nada. I guess the key with creation is to not need responses, not need anything more than the act of distribution/birth/sharing — but... man rea...

If these have started uploading, it means none of us are around anymore to edit anything. But still wanted to put them out there because... um... help me think of the right words. There's a a bunch of long sessions from our first round of doing these in 2014. Then some more over the next few years. Then there are our phone calls as both of our brains take turns south. Will schedule all of it j...

i am losing the ability to upload these — the louder of the opinions in my head are saying "dude why c'mon stop" and there's no one next to me saying sure why not. i haven't done enough to earn your attention, enough editing enough preparation. it shouldn't be so hard but I can't do it anymore, and so I'm jsut leaving this here if you feel like tapping in & ta...

If these have started uploading, it means none of us are around anymore to edit anything. But still wanted to put them out there because... ohhh you get it. There's a a bunch of long sessions from our first round of doing these in 2014. Then some more over the next few years. Then there are our phone calls as both of our brains take turns south. Will schedule all of it just in case anyone can...

If this one posts, I've headed off to see if I can find grandma. About half way through, Grandma starts saying some very smart things about (the relativity of) age and being born and growing up. There aren't any great words to put here but I imagine we might have played one of these downer interludes we "wrote" at some point. I just hope it's not a downer for too long — this...

A Jewish girl in seminary, teenage heartbreak, and what rhymes with sneezes? Also included: sexy names of the 1930s (acc. to Grandma).

hard to hear, but here's grandma talking about (lack of) will to live, and then: a shift! i was always amazed by her strength, especially as someone not always so willful. sorry the audio is so shit. (sorry for a lot of things lol.) love, a

In the last installment of the age/regret/choices sitdown from 2014, we talk about "best possible". (I talk too much.)   Competition and opportunity and validation and the Catskills. A clear grandma head on creating (professional) needs. Muddled grandson. (Bonus points for spotting unhealthy thought patterns!) These descriptions are hard to write. The book Grandma mentions wanting from m...

Grandma sings the blues. Neither one of us were real born smokers but we did our best to learn. Happy 4/20 everyone, from me and grandma and the ash in the cracks of the Casio keyboard.

It has been more years than there are pages in Grandma's first book,  Elisabeth the Bird Watcher , from 1963. How did she become a writer? Picking up mid-cookie from last time: we talk about lives lived and unlived, and the idea of looking forward to looking back. Is it possible to regret the future? Also on menu: choices and avoidance, wartime and diamonds in the rough, doors and (garden?) pa...

The first installment in a long chat about aging and living (and dying) and life choices and regrets.  Toward the end, Grandma puts up with some real incoherence from her grandson, and then has a cookie. 

we improv'd this song at some point, for you of course. the idea was that any time we got really off track, lost the thread, we could splice in a Change The Subject song and get a hold of ourselves again. in the end, it's really just one twentysomething singing about birdf**king with his grandma before she turns 100. i'm sorry everyone.

Our very first sitdown pipeside in San Diego. Grandma: is partly metal, harsh-but-fair, and tells a story you might've heard. Adam: gets told what kind of baby he was. (Leave any jokes about bluntness & blunts after the tone.) Music by the AI Chairman of the Board courtesy of Mel Brooks. Thank y'all tons for listening.

Talking through one of grandma's (1920s) childhood fears. Recorded way back when Grams was a spry af 95: the movies, broken bones, grandpa the could-be killer, and the importance of holding hands. Featuring: music from Mel Brooks' High Anxiety , Artificial Intelligence Frank Sinatra , and a Casio keyboard from 1989 . Thanks so much for listening. More soon.

Ten years ago my grandma and I started recording a podcast. She was an author of children's and young adult books and poetry — absolutely natural storyteller and all around queen from Queens, New York, and the thought was: shouldn't the world hear more from its 100 year-olds? Answer is obviously yes, but trying to edit and put things together... the short of it is I got too anxious about d...

Here's a first minute with a legendary grandma. Looks like I cut & saved this seven whole years ago and just sat on it — sorry grams :/ Would you listen to more of this?