In this episode of the podcast I am speaking with author Randy Fertel about Improvisation. Amongst other things we talk about his family, growing up in New Orleans, Louis Armstrong/ jazz improvisation, his dissertation and then writing A Taste for Chaos. There is a back story to improvisation in Hermes, Metis, Athena and a different kind of intelligence. And in the Trickster, who is a great disruptor and improvisor. We also explore creativity, innovation, chaos and culture change through this theme and also some of the dark side of Hermes and the Trickster.
Randy Fertel is the author of Winging It: Improv’s Power and Peril in the Time of Trump (Spring Publications, 2024), A Taste for Chaos: The Art of Literary Improvisation (Spring Publications, 2015) and The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir (University Press of Mississippi, 2011). He is the co-founder of the Ridenhour Prizes for Courageous Truth-telling. He holds a Ph.D. in English and American literature from Harvard University where he has also taught. In addition to his writing, Fertel is president of the Fertel Foundation and the Ruth U. Fertel Foundation, named for his mother Ruth Fertel, founder of Ruth’s Chris Steak House. He lives in New Orleans and New York.
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