From Chicago to Brooklyn to Google to a Rhinebeck Front Porch: The Elliott Malkin Story

Norm sits with Elliott Malkin, a parrot lover, artist (Graffiti for Butterflies), writer, podcaster, comb-over aficionado, and father who has taught cool shit at Bard, NYU, and Columbia and done cool shit for Google and so many others. Elliott takes Norm from a Chicago suburb bordering the famously targeted town of Skokie to a Brooklyn-to-Rhinebeck COVID migration that, like a lot in his life, he came to understand only later as part of a much bigger wave. They get into Lose Your Religion in Five Easy Steps, his genealogical art project tracing his family's path from a Hasidic ancestor to unaffiliated descendant, his stints at the New York Times and Google designing the productivity software you stare at all day, and what it was like to walk away from corporate tech this fall after nine years. Elliott also opens up about being diagnosed with autism at fifty, the relief of finally getting dialed down from eleven to eight, and raising kids in a neurodivergence-friendly household. Figuring out what's next, he's volunteering with Rhinebeck's College Connect, writing short stories nobody has read yet, and quietly working out what an artist becomes when he's not making art anymore. Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org Send comments to [email protected]