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card. From

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WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Tanya Mosley

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with Fresh Air Weekend. Today,

0:25

Brittany Greiner talks about the physical

0:27

and emotional hell of her

0:30

nearly 300 days in Russian prisons. Greiner

0:33

is a WNBA star and two-time

0:35

Olympic gold medalist. She

0:37

was convicted of smuggling a significant amount of

0:40

an illegal drug, but it was

0:42

discovered that she had two used

0:44

cartridges with a tiny amount of

0:46

medically prescribed cannabis. During

0:48

a prison psychiatric evaluation, she

0:51

was at risk of being placed in a psych

0:53

ward if she didn't answer questions. One

0:56

of the questions was, so how long

0:58

have you had sick thoughts? When did

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jazz historian Kevin Whitehead will review a 1959

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Go to syngronybank.com/NPR. Member FDIC. This

3:13

is Fresh Share Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. Terry

3:15

has today's first interview. I'll let her

3:18

introduce it. It's

3:20

been less than one and a half years

3:22

since my guest WNBA star Brittany Griner

3:24

was released from a Russian penal

3:27

colony where she was serving a

3:29

nine-year sentence. She'd already spent 293

3:32

days incarcerated in Russian prisons.

3:35

Now she's preparing for her second

3:37

season reunited with her team, the

3:39

Phoenix Mercury. Like many WNBA

3:41

players, her salary was so low that

3:44

back in 2014 in the offseason, she

3:47

started playing for a team in Russia where

3:50

the pay was considerably better than in the

3:52

US. She continued playing in

3:54

Russia during the offseason until 2022. Then

3:58

when she arrived at the airport in. Moscow.

4:00

She was unexpectedly stopped questioned and

4:02

as to empty the contents of

4:04

her luggage. She discovered that they

4:06

were to nearly empty cartridges of

4:09

cannabis that she'd neglected to remove

4:11

before the trip. She had a

4:13

prescription for medical marijuana to ease

4:15

the chronic pain of basketball injuries,

4:17

but in Russia there's no such

4:19

thing as medical marijuana, and she

4:22

was accused of having a significant

4:24

amount of cannabis, which was just

4:26

not true. Or Imprisonment

4:28

made national headlines and a movement

4:31

formed to demand for release. The

4:33

Biden administration eventually was able to

4:35

negotiate a prisoner swap in return

4:38

for releasing Griner America handed over

4:40

the if to boot and infamous

4:42

Russian. Arms dealer known as the Merchant

4:44

of Death. Grown or

4:47

is a women's basketball star and her

4:49

senior year playing said the Baylor Lady

4:51

Bears, she was named the most outstanding

4:53

player of the final four. She was

4:55

the W N B A number one

4:57

overall draft pick and twenty. Thirteen.

5:00

The. Following year her team won the

5:03

W N B A championship. She holds

5:05

the W N B A record for

5:07

most dunks, she won Olympic gold medals,

5:10

and twenty sixteen And twenty twenty. Now

5:12

that she's reunited with her wise, they're

5:14

expecting a baby and about three months.

5:17

Brittney. Griner has a new memoir

5:19

called coming Home. Brittney.

5:22

Griner Welcome to Fresh Air.

5:24

Congratulations on your freedom, Congratulations

5:26

on playing again. Congratulations on

5:28

being reunited with your wife

5:30

and of expecting a baby.

5:32

Thank. You so much I'm glad to be

5:35

here are now. So I just wanna

5:37

say before we start for Will there I know

5:39

because she wrote about this that when you've got

5:41

back. From. your imprisonment

5:44

in russia you had trouble you kind of

5:46

withdrew for a while have had trouble even

5:48

talking with your wife about what you'd experience

5:51

guess it was so traumatic and i know

5:53

you've written a memoir but it's one thing

5:55

to work on a book and another

5:57

to be interviewed on mike i'm so If

6:00

I ask anything that would be too

6:02

traumatizing, too upsetting to talk about, I hope

6:04

you'll let me know. And that

6:06

way I can be guided and drop

6:09

it. Thank you so

6:11

much, I appreciate that. So

6:13

let's start with, how are you now?

6:15

How are you physically? Physically,

6:18

I'm doing good now. Doing better

6:20

than definitely when I first came

6:22

back. There was a lot of

6:24

growing pains and just getting

6:26

the body back into normal shape and then

6:29

trying to get it back into athletic shape.

6:32

Has your back recovered? You had cracked

6:34

your back in high school playing

6:37

basketball. And I wasn't sure when you said you

6:39

cracked your back whether that meant you broke a

6:41

bone or displaced a disc. It

6:44

was a disc vertebrae kind

6:46

of smashed together

6:49

a little bit. I

6:52

went up actually for a dunk and it got

6:54

hit in the air and came down really bad.

6:56

But definitely better now. I

6:59

have a little flare up here and there,

7:01

but it's just all the years of play.

7:04

Yeah, and you have no cartilage left in

7:06

your knees from playing. You

7:08

also had a bad ankle and leg injury from a game in

7:10

2017. And you're right

7:12

that all this pain came back when you were

7:14

put in cages way too small for you and

7:17

you couldn't straighten out. This

7:19

happened during long car rides

7:21

and at times in detention,

7:23

in the courtroom, you were

7:26

really uncomfortable. Can you describe some of the

7:28

most uncomfortable positions you

7:30

were put in and particularly for you

7:32

who are six foot nine, a

7:35

confined small space is really

7:37

terrible. Not

7:40

ideal, I'll tell you that. I mean, the

7:42

beds that we had to sleep on, I

7:45

mean, I basically had just metal rods

7:47

going up my back every night just

7:49

trying to find somewhere comfortable to lay.

7:51

But it's really no way you can

7:53

lay when the mattress is

7:55

just a little bit of

7:57

fabric and some stuff in it. metal

8:00

rods go right through basically. But

8:03

one of my one of the toughest times honestly

8:05

is probably the transportation

8:07

going back and forth from

8:09

the detention center to

8:11

court and then from court back

8:14

to the detention center. Here inside

8:16

this small, it's like a small

8:18

van and in that van there's

8:21

little metal cages all around the

8:23

outside. I do not fit. There

8:26

was a couple of rods and a couple of different

8:28

vehicles that they would switch up and

8:31

literally to close the door I had to

8:33

pick my legs up and they would shut

8:35

the door and then my knees would literally

8:37

be on the metal

8:39

door frame for about an hour,

8:42

hour and a half to get

8:44

from the detention center down to

8:46

the courthouse. And then did you

8:48

have to live with residual pain for a

8:50

long time after that? Definitely.

8:52

I mean my knees that first

8:54

year coming back from all that,

8:58

not being able to move, not being able to

9:00

stretch out and then being forced, you know, my

9:02

knees up against these metal metal

9:05

doors. I definitely felt it. There

9:07

was a lot of a lot of pain that would just

9:09

come back. How

9:12

are you emotionally now? I

9:14

have my moments. You

9:16

know I definitely say it's like a roller coaster.

9:19

I'm starting to string together a lot

9:21

more better days now than before. It'll

9:25

just be a thought that'll pop up in

9:27

my head sometimes or a dream and then

9:29

that turns into just a restless night or

9:32

just my mood being a little bit off.

9:35

But it's definitely getting better now.

9:38

It's something that I've learned to kind

9:40

of deal with and cope with. You

9:42

had been having a lot of nightmares. What would happen

9:45

in your nightmares? So I have

9:48

this one reoccurring dream where something

9:50

was wrong with paperwork or

9:53

something was wrong and I had

9:55

to go back to the embassy

9:57

in Russia actually. And when I

9:59

go back they take me and

10:02

I'm stuck right back in the cell

10:04

that I was in and there's

10:07

no talk of coming back. So it's

10:09

just right back into the place

10:12

where I spent most of the time. Early

10:16

in your book you write about how before basketball

10:18

there was no place for you because you're 6'9

10:20

or 6'8, I want to get it right. 6'9.

10:25

6'9, yeah. So were you that tall in

10:27

high school too? I

10:29

grew the extra inch once I got out

10:31

of high school and into college. Went in

10:34

the 9th grade, 6'9, graduated 6'7, grew two

10:36

more when in college. It's

10:41

a lot of growing. A lot of

10:43

growing, a lot of growing, a lot of new clothes.

10:46

I wasn't mad about that. And

10:49

also you didn't develop rest and people always

10:51

thought, oh, really a boy

10:53

or later, oh, you're really a

10:55

man. And you were asked to

10:57

leave women's bathrooms because people assumed

10:59

you were a man. And

11:02

you were mistaken for what society fears

11:04

most, a black man, a big black

11:06

man. When you were younger

11:08

before you were a basketball star, did you

11:10

constantly have to explain yourself? Always,

11:13

always. I mean, I just made a

11:15

habit very, very young on just making

11:18

sure I use the bathroom before

11:20

I leave the house and wait till I'm in

11:22

my locker room where I know I'm safe. I

11:26

would leave class and go to the locker

11:28

room and use the bathroom. When I'm at

11:30

my gym, it's in our locker room. I've

11:34

made this habit now that it's a little bit

11:36

easier to do now, but I

11:39

still don't like having to use public bathrooms

11:41

because I've been chased after literally

11:44

had security come into the bathroom to get

11:46

me out of there. And I'm just like,

11:49

I'm a female. I know

11:52

you probably don't think I look like one, but

11:54

I am. And I've

11:56

literally pulled my pants down and flashed

11:58

them like. And they're like, oh

12:00

my God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. You

12:03

know, like, not like I can flash

12:05

my chest. Yeah, right.

12:07

It's not like you could flash your chest,

12:09

right? And basketball,

12:11

your height was an asset and you were

12:14

special. What did you fall in

12:16

love with about basketball? It

12:18

was just a way for me to channel anxiety,

12:20

anger, anything, it gave

12:23

me a focus. Basketball

12:25

helped me be able to relate to

12:27

a wide range of people because you're

12:29

not gonna like everybody on your team.

12:31

Like, it's just life. Like, you're not

12:33

gonna like everyone. And you have to

12:35

learn how to work towards

12:37

a common goal together. And

12:39

I think that can be applied to life. I

12:42

really like that. And being

12:44

challenged, you know, like there's always someone

12:46

bigger and better coming along. There's always

12:48

someone gunning for you. So you either

12:50

evolve or you get left behind. And

12:52

I love being able to stay

12:54

in the game as long as I have, and hopefully I have a

12:57

longer career. Well,

12:59

you played in Russia for eight seasons, largely

13:02

because you needed the money because especially back

13:04

when you started, women's

13:06

basketball, pro ball was paid very little.

13:10

I think things have improved a little,

13:12

but proportionate to the NBA, there's no

13:14

comparison. And in Russia,

13:16

some of the teams are run by oligarchs. So

13:19

like, there was money. But

13:21

of course, the last time you went, you

13:24

were detained and arrested. You

13:26

didn't want to go. You wanted

13:28

to stay home with your wife. And

13:31

you kind of had a bad feeling. And

13:33

you decided, okay, this is going to be

13:35

your last season in Russia. You had just

13:37

gotten over COVID. You were still coughing. Do

13:40

you think you had a premonition? I

13:42

definitely think the universe was telling me to

13:44

stay at home, honestly. And

13:47

it was something that I promised myself that I

13:49

would always listen to my intuition. No

13:51

matter how big or small, I think it is.

13:53

I'm definitely going to listen to it. Because there

13:55

were just so many signs of, you

13:58

know, don't go. But I just heard that. that voice

14:00

in the back of my head. You know,

14:02

I grew up on the morals of you finish

14:05

what you start and you know

14:07

I never want to leave my teammates in a bad

14:09

position and we were right there. We were about to

14:11

go win EuroLeague and Russian

14:13

League, you know, like we always have. So I

14:16

just wanted to finish it out and then let

14:18

that be the end. Yeah

14:20

and you had packed in a hurry, you threw

14:22

things in your luggage and didn't check the seat

14:25

if anything was in the pockets and that's where

14:27

the two mostly used up

14:29

cartridges of cannabis were. And you

14:32

know you had the prescription because of your

14:34

pain from basketball and injuries. You were stopped

14:36

at the Russian airport and it sounds like

14:38

that was not typical but there was a

14:41

whole lot of security people there. I'm wondering

14:44

if that was because this

14:46

was a week before the war

14:49

in Ukraine started, before Russia started the war

14:51

in Ukraine. Do you think that there were

14:53

special security alerts because of

14:55

that? I mean it definitely

14:57

a great possibility because you know they knew

14:59

what they were about to do. They knew

15:01

they were about to invade and yeah I

15:05

mean I've made this trip multiple

15:07

times in a season. You know

15:09

we come back two three times

15:11

within one season. Been

15:13

there eight years so I've never

15:15

seen so much security

15:18

dogs. You know

15:20

everybody that was getting pulled to the side looked

15:23

either American or you know

15:26

non-Russian and you know all

15:28

the Russians were basically just walking through the

15:30

middle not getting checked. So

15:32

it was definitely something

15:34

that I for sure noticed. Do

15:37

you think you were targeted? It's

15:40

hard to say yes or no to that but

15:42

you know my feeling I think

15:45

maybe not me per se but an

15:48

American I think that was a big

15:50

plus for them. We're

15:53

listening to Terri's interview with Brittany Griner.

15:55

Her new memoir is called Coming Home.

15:58

We'll hear more of their conversation. after

16:00

a break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and

16:02

this is Fresh Air Weekend. This

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stearnsandfoster.com. You

17:07

were able to get a good Russian lawyer and

17:09

then another lawyer to help too. And

17:13

your lawyer was able to

17:16

rent you an apartment nearby

17:18

the courthouse so that

17:20

when you were put under house arrest, you'd have a place nearby

17:22

to stay. Well, my team. Your team?

17:24

My team. Yeah, okay, your

17:27

basketball team. But you

17:29

were given no bail, no house arrest. You

17:31

were considered a flight risk. So

17:33

that was like crushing. And

17:35

then you found out you needed to stay in

17:38

detention for a minimum of 30 days. And

17:41

then after that time, you were

17:44

moved to a correctional colony. And

17:47

I want you to describe what the conditions were like there.

17:52

So, I mean, the detention center

17:54

and the penal colony, IK2

17:57

that I ended up in once I

17:59

got my 9-year sentence. years. I mean the

18:01

conditions were horrible. I

18:03

mean trying to find clean water,

18:07

trying to figure out how to buy

18:09

water from commissary. That took,

18:12

I mean that probably took me about

18:14

a month, two months to figure out

18:17

how to even buy, you know, water,

18:20

bottled water. And then the

18:22

games began because I was

18:24

buying so much water then I was told,

18:26

oh well there's a limit

18:28

on how much you can buy, how much

18:31

you can store in the room because I

18:33

was buying so much water because our water

18:35

that everyone uses comes

18:37

from the bathroom sink and

18:39

that water that comes out that sink is

18:42

just a milky, it looks like

18:44

a milky water because it's just

18:46

so much sediment and calcium

18:48

and just rust because everything

18:50

is rusted. Trying to

18:52

be able to have food because what they

18:55

serve you is, I wouldn't

18:57

even give it to a stray animal, like it's

19:00

just disgusting. The

19:02

bowls that they serve the food out

19:04

of, you can see the paint chipping,

19:06

the rust in it, the

19:08

bed, how cold it is. One of

19:11

the things that I noticed when I

19:13

came back that I hate being cold

19:15

because it was so cold there. They

19:17

had these little radiators on the walls

19:19

but the whole room is

19:22

metal and concrete so it's just like being in

19:24

an ice box. And you were there

19:26

during Russian winter? Oh yes,

19:28

the blistering cold Russian

19:31

winter, you know, once we were

19:33

at IK2, the penal colony, you

19:36

have morning check every morning and

19:38

every night you have morning check.

19:41

Well they have everyone line up

19:43

outside in the courtyard and

19:46

they come by and they count us

19:48

one by one. It's very old-school counting

19:51

of us and you're

19:53

out there for about an hour, hour and a half,

19:55

and literally blistering

19:58

cold, blistering cold. It doesn't

20:00

matter. Snow literally was building up

20:02

on my shoulders and my head where people would

20:04

have to like knock it off. Would

20:08

you describe what bathing and toileting was like

20:10

in the prison? Oof,

20:13

so you have three toilets

20:15

and one shower to

20:18

serve 50 plus women. Then

20:21

there's no hot water. You literally,

20:23

I had a bucket and a ladle.

20:26

So you would take a kettle, like

20:28

a tea kettle, warm up

20:30

water out the sink, pour it into

20:32

the bowl, into the bucket. You

20:34

take the bucket and the ladle into the shower.

20:37

You squat down in the shower and you

20:40

just scoop and pour. And

20:43

that's how you take a shower. And you have about maybe

20:46

five minutes because you have about 10, 12

20:48

other women waiting

20:50

in the bathroom area to get into

20:52

that shower. Not everyone

20:54

showers though. So some people picture

20:57

like a big farm house,

21:00

like sink with multiple faucets

21:02

on it. So people

21:05

be over there washing chests, washing

21:07

their armpits, kicking their feet in

21:09

the sink. You're next to them

21:11

brushing your teeth. You

21:14

have people washing all kinds of body parts.

21:17

The toilets are side by side

21:20

and in front of you. There

21:23

was five toilets in there, but only

21:25

three worked. So you had a neighbor right

21:27

beside you and someone right in front of

21:29

you. And there's

21:31

no walls. So it's very intimate. You

21:33

get to know your roommates very

21:36

well, very personally, which

21:40

was insane to say

21:43

the least. I thought it was both upsetting

21:45

and hilarious that the toothpaste you were given expired

21:47

in 2007. Yes,

21:49

you have old toothpaste that they give

21:51

you. So If your family can't

21:54

help you and you can't buy things, you

21:56

just have to live with expired stuff. But

21:58

We would use the expired toothpaste. Put

22:00

it on the mole on the walls

22:02

because it would help kill them all

22:05

growing on the wall, how to react

22:07

as you get really resource. You

22:10

are in a cell with two other women. I'm

22:13

one of them. Became a close

22:15

friend. She spoke English and translated everything

22:17

for you including tv programs. Says you

22:20

are allowed to watch tv but it

22:22

was mostly Russian propaganda arm and then

22:24

the other roommate is a good i

22:26

was a spy. I

22:28

have a question about the Russian propaganda. Channel I

22:31

want you to describe the clip.

22:33

Of. Joe. Biden President

22:36

Biden at the podium. Where.

22:38

He kind of turns into Hitler. Yeah,

22:41

so it was Channel Four. He

22:43

was up talking addressing the nation

22:46

and they started to distort his

22:48

voice and literally there was too

22:51

big American flags. Right beside him

22:53

was the Nazi flag comes down

22:55

over the American flags and admittedly

22:58

jumped up. and I was like

23:00

a lot of least like what

23:02

was going on and Sousa's I

23:05

got the propaganda channel, there's Nino,

23:07

they're just talking crap about your

23:09

presidents and I. Was is blown

23:11

away and never isamu years thought i

23:14

was see something like that it was

23:16

is crazy vague even the talk shows

23:18

i she would tell me sometimes though

23:21

he knows his his. Roommate. Who was

23:23

your cell med I should say who was translating for

23:25

yes? Yes my cellmate that

23:27

was translating they're insane for me

23:29

since you tell me about his

23:31

to different shows how how nazi

23:34

Germany is controlling America and we

23:36

we wanna come and take Russian

23:39

land from everyone in Aus aside

23:41

wow. Where most

23:43

of the women in the prisons

23:45

where you are on their businesses,

23:48

drug charges, Yes,

23:50

Number one thing everyone and races

23:52

and for his drug charges in

23:54

him. Murders. were

23:58

you on Careful

24:00

around the murderers. I didn't

24:02

really even think about it. Honestly when I was in there

24:04

I mean there was a couple of women that I

24:07

was close to and I knew that they had

24:10

attacked their husbands and You

24:13

know that was a very common thing

24:15

they had in Russia they relaxed their

24:17

laws around domestic violence and a lot

24:19

of women ended up in really bad

24:21

situations and You know they

24:24

acted to get out of them but

24:26

I wasn't I never was fearful

24:29

of them doing anything to me so

24:33

part of what you're doing now is

24:35

work on behalf of Americans

24:37

who are detained in foreign countries who

24:39

are imprisoned in foreign countries working to

24:41

get them out I'm

24:44

also wondering if you're interested in doing

24:46

prison reform work in the US Because

24:49

it's horrible as conditions were in Russia.

24:52

I mean conditions are not good in

24:54

most American prisons Yes,

24:56

a hundred percent I was

24:58

just talking with my agent about that the other day

25:01

actually about how I can What

25:04

I can do how I can be of use You

25:07

know what organization I could

25:10

partner with because like you said

25:12

conditions are extremely bad

25:14

overseas, but they're equally

25:16

bad in certain prisons and even

25:18

in our country here and No

25:21

matter no matter what someone is

25:23

being convicted of they still have rights as

25:25

a human and they still have

25:28

rights as a prisoner, you know incarcerated

25:30

and You

25:33

don't get stripped of those rights just because

25:35

you're in prison so I

25:37

definitely would love to work with a

25:41

group that's working

25:43

in reform and Re-immersion as well because

25:45

a lot of times we say you

25:47

know you you do the time you

25:49

you You're corrected,

25:51

but then when you come back into society,

25:54

we make it even harder for them to

25:57

Accumulate back in so I definitely want to

25:59

do something around that. Brittany

26:02

Greiner, thank you so much for talking with us. Thank

26:06

you for having me on. I appreciate it so much. And

26:08

congratulations again on your freedom and your new

26:10

life. Thank you. And

26:12

your soon-to-come baby. Thank

26:15

you so much. Brittany Greiner's

26:18

new memoir is called Coming Home

26:21

and she spoke with Terry Gross. Our

26:24

jazz historian Kevin Whitehead has some

26:27

thoughts about saxophonist Sonny Rollins

26:30

in 1959. Early

26:32

that year, Rollins took a

26:34

trio to Europe for a tour

26:36

documented on a new reissue. Five

26:39

months later, he withdrew from

26:41

performing in public for two

26:43

years, instead practicing on New

26:45

York's Williamsburg Bridge. Here's

26:48

Rollins in Stockholm that March on

26:50

his anthem, St. Thomas. Early

27:22

in 1959, Sonny Rollins was

27:24

a few years into one

27:26

of the great hot streets

27:35

in jazz history. The handful

27:37

of classic albums he made then include a

27:39

couple with just bass and drums. That

27:42

format gave him plenty of elbow room and obliged

27:44

him to blow at length, which he was happy

27:46

to do. Rollins took

27:49

a trio to Europe for three weeks in late

27:51

winter. Three hours from that

27:53

tour are heard on a new

27:55

Sonny approved reissue, Freedom Weaver, drawing

27:57

on seven gigs from five countries.

28:00

The saxophonist has lung power,

28:02

ideas, and technique to burn,

28:05

and gloriously unruly turn out. Sonny

28:35

Rollins comes on like a few jazz grates

28:37

combined. He has Louis

28:40

Armstrong's teasing way with a melody,

28:42

Charlie Parker's high speed virtuosity and

28:44

wit, Tenor Lester Young's rhythmic obstinacy,

28:47

the noble tone of Coleman Hawkins,

28:50

and Dexter Gordon's swagger. But

28:52

it all comes out in Rollins' own

28:55

brash, self-assured voice. Listen

28:57

to him dart around on, I want to

28:59

be happy, recorded in Holland. Paraphrasing

29:02

or improvising, he's variously

29:04

in front of, on top of,

29:06

behind, or way behind the beat.

29:09

The trio's secret hero, young Henry

29:11

Grimes, sets the pace on bass

29:13

beside Pete LaRocca's Sims on drums.

29:52

He's a serious demon. As

30:00

ecstatic as Rollins

30:03

can sound, he's

30:06

acutely self-aware. He

30:19

said that he sometimes felt like he was

30:21

observing himself from above while playing, as if

30:23

split in two. He

30:26

makes that split literal on one take

30:28

of, I've told, every little star, whereas

30:30

tenor answers itself off microphone. I

30:33

make a connection to radio comedians

30:35

Rollins loved, Bob and Ray, who

30:37

toggle between different voices in a

30:39

sketch. This

31:30

1959

31:33

music poses an old question with no

31:35

simple answer. Why

31:37

was this grandmaster on fire so

31:40

dissatisfied he quit performing for two

31:42

years in romantic sabbatical on the

31:44

Williamsburg Bridge? We

31:47

get clues from a new trade paperback of

31:49

the notebooks of Sonny Rollins, whose entries begin

31:51

in 1959. Back

31:54

then he's mostly preoccupied with technical

31:56

matters and shortcomings. and

32:00

side keys get a lot of attention.

32:03

And it's true on the European tour, sometimes

32:05

a couple of notes in a fast run

32:07

will sound blurry. There was still

32:09

work to do. In

32:12

the 60s, Rollins dreamt of writing

32:14

a saxophone manual, but his observations

32:16

were mostly notes to himself. Later

32:19

in the notebooks, he gets more philosophical.

32:22

The musical discussion gets deep in the

32:24

weeds, and the book's editor supplies all

32:26

of seven skimpy footnotes when we need

32:28

more like 70. Where,

32:31

say, Rollins goes on about interacting

32:33

with Don, Bob, and Billy, the

32:35

editor might note that's trumpeter Don

32:37

Cherry, bassist Bob Crenshaw, and drummer

32:40

Billy Higgins, which makes it 1962.

32:42

The Rollins

32:44

notebooks cry out for

32:47

a crowdsourced annotation's website.

32:49

His 1959 trio music,

32:51

my commentary aside, needs

32:53

no such mediation. His

32:56

big-hearted music speaks for itself. Kevin

33:00

Whitehead is the author of the book Play

33:02

the Way You Feel, the essential guide to

33:05

jazz stories on film. Coming

33:07

up, we'll talk about the intelligence of

33:09

plants with climate journalist Zoe Schlanger. I'm

33:11

Tanya Moseley, and this is Fresh

33:14

Air Weekend. This

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For this podcast comes from

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the new Bauer Family Foundation's

34:15

supporting Wh Why Why's Fresh

34:17

Air and it's commitment to

34:19

sharing ideas and encouraging meaningful

34:21

conversation. In the seventies,

34:23

there were these questionable experiments that

34:25

claim to prove that plants can

34:27

behave like humans, that they had

34:30

feelings or could respond to music

34:32

or even take a polygraph test.

34:34

Know. Most of those claims has since

34:36

been debunked by it's a new

34:38

wave of research suggests that plants

34:40

are indeed intelligent and complex Ways

34:42

that challenge are very understanding of

34:44

agency and consciousness. That's. The

34:46

subject of a new book written by

34:49

climate journalist so he slang they're called

34:51

the light Eaters. How the unseen world

34:53

of plant intelligence offers a new understanding

34:55

of life on Earth. And. The

34:58

Books Slinger explores how plants do

35:00

indeed communicate with each other, see

35:02

and recognize other plants, store memories,

35:05

and even learn. Slinker.

35:07

Traveled around the world to explore the

35:09

work of botanical researchers to understand the

35:11

debate among them on how to interpret

35:14

the latest findings which are some times

35:16

at odds with our conception of what

35:18

a plant actually is. So.

35:20

We slinger his staff reporter at

35:22

the Atlantic's where she covers climate

35:24

change. She also writes the newsletter,

35:26

the Weekly Planet, which tells the

35:28

story of life on a changing

35:30

planet. Her work has appeared in

35:32

various publications including The New York

35:34

Times and the New York Review

35:36

of Books. So. We slang are welcome

35:38

to fresh air. It's wonderful to be

35:40

with you. i've really enjoyed

35:43

this but very fascinating and you

35:45

know from the moment i'd started

35:47

to read it i was thinking

35:49

about how plan intelligence has been

35:51

for such a long time a

35:53

highly contested idea especially after some

35:55

of that defunct research from the

35:57

seventies what made you say to

35:59

yourself I've got to

36:01

pick up this field of study

36:03

and explore this new science behind

36:05

this idea of plant intelligence. Yeah.

36:09

So, as you said, I cover climate change.

36:11

And a few years ago, I was feeling

36:14

really burnt out. I'm sure as anyone

36:16

can relate to climate as a harrowing

36:18

subject. And my editor realized

36:20

that I needed a bit of a change. And

36:24

he's just like, go find something else to cover. And

36:26

I've always been interested in plants. And

36:28

I started perusing botany journals. And

36:31

I noticed something that really

36:33

made me fall off my chair

36:35

the first time I saw it, which was that at

36:37

this exact moment I was looking, botanists

36:40

were debating the possibility

36:42

that plants were intelligent.

36:45

And as any science journalist knows

36:47

or any scientist, science is

36:49

an incredibly conservative field. Scientists

36:52

don't want to be misconstrued.

36:55

They tend to avoid using words that are

36:57

mushy or can have multiple meanings. And

36:59

so the fact that they were using words

37:02

like intelligence and consciousness and having this rigorous

37:04

debate among themselves, I

37:06

knew that would be a huge story.

37:09

And not one that I had

37:11

seen break out of the realm

37:13

of botany journals in academia into

37:15

the public realm yet. That's

37:18

really fascinating that they're using the word

37:20

intelligence. It seems like a phrase that

37:22

we can all understand. We know animals,

37:24

for instance, have unique intelligence that isn't

37:26

human. In what you

37:28

were reading though, is there

37:30

a consensus about what consciousness

37:32

means as it relates to

37:34

plants? Absolutely not.

37:37

I mean, consciousness is a fascinating thing

37:39

because we don't have any consensus for

37:41

what it means even in ourselves. You

37:46

and I can completely feel our own consciousness,

37:48

but we actually have no way to make

37:51

certain that anyone else is conscious. We

37:54

observe consciousness in humans just

37:57

through inference, through watching behavior

37:59

or... Afghan person questions and

38:01

we barely have extended consciousness and

38:03

to the world of animals at

38:05

this point. And I think we're

38:07

all comfortable with the idea that

38:09

you know dog is. Most of

38:12

us have had experience with an

38:14

animal that. To. Us would

38:16

confirm it's consciousness, but in terms

38:18

of science and philosophy and neurobiology,

38:20

it's It's still a bit of

38:22

an open question. actually. I'm I'm

38:24

a New York, and just a

38:26

couple weeks ago at N Y

38:28

U, there's a conference as biologists

38:30

and philosophers and they put out

38:33

a declaration that sort of extends

38:35

the possibility of consciousness to insects

38:37

and fish and crustaceans. So that's

38:39

just brand new. And that was

38:41

an extension of another declaration. and

38:43

twenty twelve that extended consciousness. To

38:45

mammals and birds. So we're barely.

38:48

On the edge as. Widening.

38:51

This circle to admit other species.

38:53

But here are botanists suggesting we

38:55

might have to wide net even

38:57

further to. You

39:00

prefer this idea that

39:02

plants have agency. Can.

39:05

You say more about what you mean. Yeah.

39:08

Agencies. Is. A

39:11

little less mushy. You don't need

39:13

to be certain of consciousness or

39:15

intelligence to use it agency. Is

39:18

this a sect of having. Control.

39:21

Of one's destiny so to speak

39:23

at having. An. Act his

39:25

stake in the outcome of

39:27

your life And when I.

39:30

Was. Looking at plants and speaking to

39:32

botanists, it became very clear to

39:34

me that plants have this. They

39:36

have this lively ability to make

39:38

choices for themselves, to plan for

39:40

the future, to use information from

39:42

their environment, and mix it with

39:44

experiences in their past to make

39:46

really wise choices for their future.

39:48

And that can mean changing how

39:50

their body looks, changing what direction

39:52

to grow in, changing the conditions

39:54

that they create for their offspring.

39:56

There's a whole realm of maternal

39:58

care and plan. And it's

40:01

the sort of. Taking

40:03

control of man's. Life.

40:06

So to speak, And that. We.

40:09

Don't even need to get into consciousness

40:11

to discuss it's very clear plants or

40:13

agent his subjects and listen to me

40:15

at this point. I'm

40:18

also thinking about something else. like when

40:20

sometimes when you look at a lease

40:22

you can see the details with in

40:24

that lease and it made me wonder.

40:28

Is. It right to say that plants have

40:30

a nervous system. You

40:32

are touching on something that. People.

40:35

Are debating right now am I was

40:37

able to go to a lab in

40:39

Wisconsin where there was plants. I had

40:41

also been engineered to glow, but only

40:44

to glow when they've been patched. So

40:46

I use tweezers to pinch a plant

40:48

on it's veins. Exactly what you're talking

40:51

about. The kind of midrib of Elise

40:53

and I got to watch this glowing

40:55

green signal emanate from the point where

40:58

I pinch the plant out. To.

41:00

The whole rest of the plant. Within

41:02

two minutes the whole plant had received

41:04

a signal of my thoughts of my

41:06

assault, said the speak with his tweezers

41:08

and visit like that is leading. People.

41:11

Within the plant sciences, the Ozil. People.

41:13

Who work on neurobiology in

41:15

people to question whether or

41:17

not it's time to expand

41:19

the notion. Of a

41:21

nervous system. Maybe we need to imagine

41:23

a nervous system as something that. Evolved

41:26

multiple times throughout multiple tax

41:29

of life. Like many other

41:31

things, slight evolved many times

41:33

and birds and bats and

41:36

other creatures. Eyeballs evolved. Many.

41:38

Times separately and maybe a

41:41

nervous system did to. Maybe

41:43

it's more fundamental to lifespan

41:45

we've known before. Thinking

41:48

about this plant responding to your

41:50

tweezers though also makes me wonder.

41:53

What have scientists found regarding

41:56

plants ability to feel? Do

41:58

they feel pain? pain. We

42:02

have nothing at the moment to suggest

42:04

that plants feel pain, but do

42:07

they sense being touched

42:09

or sense being eaten and

42:12

respond with a flurry

42:14

of defensive chemicals that suggest that they

42:16

really want to prevent whatever is going

42:19

on from continuing? Absolutely. So this

42:21

is where we get into tricky

42:23

territory. Do we ascribe human concepts

42:25

like pain or of

42:28

course that's an animal concept more broadly

42:30

to a plant even though it has no brain

42:33

and we can't ask it if it feels pain.

42:36

We have not found pain receptors in a plant, but

42:39

then again the devil's advocate view here

42:41

is that we only found

42:43

the mechanoreceptors for pain in

42:46

humans like fairly recently. But

42:50

we do know plants are receiving

42:53

inputs all the time. They know

42:55

when a caterpillar is chewing on

42:57

them and they will respond with

42:59

aggressive defensiveness. They will do wild

43:01

things to keep that caterpillar from

43:03

destroying them further. Like

43:06

what? Like actually emitting tannins

43:08

and things like that to stop them from eating

43:11

them. Exactly. But the defenses

43:13

are spectacular and precise and

43:15

actually kind of cruel in

43:17

some cases. Tomato

43:19

plants have been found

43:21

to encourage caterpillars towards

43:23

cannibalism when they're eating

43:25

their leaves. Apparently caterpillars

43:27

tend towards cannibalism anyway

43:30

when there's not enough food around. But the

43:32

plants will fill their leaves with something that

43:34

makes them so unappetizing that caterpillars will look

43:37

up from their leaves and start eating each

43:39

other instead. Another example

43:41

that absolutely blows my mind is

43:44

that corn plants will sample

43:46

the saliva from a caterpillar

43:48

that's eating it and then it

43:50

will know what species that caterpillar is or

43:53

at least know what species

43:55

of wasp it needs to summon

43:57

to come parasitize the

43:59

caterpillar. So it'll emit this

44:01

volatile chemical that floats on the air and

44:05

it will summon the exact parasitic wasp

44:07

that wants to come inject

44:09

its eggs in the caterpillar, the

44:11

larva hatch, and then eat the caterpillar from

44:13

the inside. And that takes

44:15

care of the caterpillar for the plant. You

44:18

touched on, of course,

44:21

plants don't have a brain, but

44:24

you also wonder at the same time, what

44:27

if the plant itself is just one

44:29

big brain? Explain this to me.

44:33

I had this moment in

44:35

the middle of reporting this book where I admitted

44:37

this very sheepishly to a botanist thinking that she

44:39

would wave me off and think

44:41

I was very silly. And I asked

44:43

her, what, why does the whole plant is something like

44:45

a brain? And she sort of

44:47

leaned in and whispered, I think that

44:49

too. I just don't talk about it very much. This

44:52

is an idea bubbling up. The

44:55

fringes are among

44:57

more open-minded botanists, I would say. Why

45:00

does she say she doesn't talk about

45:02

it much? Because something that you actually

45:04

encountered was a lot of

45:06

reticence of talking about this, even for those who

45:08

are studying it, because what

45:10

they're actually doing right now is redefining

45:12

the very meaning of intelligence and consciousness.

45:15

And there's been so much passed

45:17

around pseudoscience that has invalidated their

45:19

work. Exactly. I mentioned

45:22

the Secret Life of Plants, a

45:24

book in 1973 that

45:26

was a mixture of some reasonably good

45:28

science, but then a huge part of

45:30

it was not something that anyone could

45:33

reproduce. And it really tarnished

45:35

the field for about 30 years, sending

45:37

bodies who are really hesitant to fund

45:39

botanical behavior research, the realm of

45:42

how plants behave. And

45:45

that taboo is still on the plant sciences

45:47

a little bit. It's worn off, which has

45:49

allowed certain research to come through. Scientists

45:53

across any discipline are wary of

45:56

saying anything too outlandish.

45:59

They need to... check their facts first.

46:01

They need to have peer review processes in

46:03

place to make sure they're not saying something

46:05

to the public that can't be proven. And

46:07

I feel scientists are aware

46:10

that they're writing the first draft of

46:12

knowledge of their field. And

46:14

if that draft has flaws,

46:16

anything built on top of it would

46:18

also have flaws. So they have tremendous responsibility

46:20

to not mess this up. Well,

46:23

back to the idea of a

46:25

plant itself being one big brain,

46:28

what made you come to that idea

46:30

after looking at the research

46:33

and the ways that plants

46:35

behave? When you look

46:38

at plant sensing and the way a

46:40

plant senses its world, it's

46:42

doing it with all of these

46:44

disparate limbs. I mean, a plant

46:46

is growing constantly, and a plant

46:48

is modular, much unlike us. We

46:51

evolved in a situation where we evolved

46:53

to run across long distances and

46:55

seek our food across

46:58

long distances. So our

47:00

processing evolved in a very compact,

47:03

portable brain. It makes sense for us to

47:05

have this centralized place that stores our information

47:08

and our senses. But a plant evolved

47:10

rooted in place. And

47:12

that evolutionary heritage means

47:14

maybe there wasn't any good reason

47:17

to make a compact, centralized processing

47:19

center. Maybe plant

47:22

sensing is a more diffuse phenomena.

47:24

Maybe it is something that doesn't

47:26

need to be all packed into

47:28

one place. And a plant

47:31

is able to lose a limb and not

47:33

be that harmed by that. So it

47:35

would make sense that it was more of a

47:37

diffuse sensing ability. And it

47:39

seems like a lot of the research bears

47:42

that out. I mentioned the

47:44

experiment where I got to pinch the plant

47:46

and watch it receive

47:48

the awareness of that signal. If

47:51

you are looking for a brain, it wouldn't make sense

47:53

that the whole plant could respond to me pinching just

47:55

one part of it. The

47:58

signal would sort of ricochet meaninglessly. Throughout

48:00

the plant and yet it does respond Maybe

48:03

it doesn't need to route that signal back

48:05

to a centralized place. Maybe it's

48:08

Something more like what we're finding with fungi

48:10

this kind of diffuse mat of awareness That

48:14

is yet very capable of understanding what's going

48:16

on with all parts of it So

48:20

thinking like a skeptic here and

48:22

really many researchers said this to

48:24

you this idea of

48:27

consciousness or Intelligence, it's

48:29

just really a matter of chemical reactions How

48:33

widely accepted is this notion of

48:35

plant intelligence in this moment with

48:38

all of this burgeoning research that

48:40

you found? the

48:42

reality is that Scientists won't

48:44

be the ones to decide whether

48:46

plants are intelligent or conscious It

48:49

will be a debate that goes on in In

48:52

more of the humanities in in

48:54

philosophy in ethics because

48:56

science is there to show us

49:00

observation and to experiment

49:02

but it can't answer questions about

49:04

this ineffable squishy concept of intelligence

49:06

and consciousness and part of

49:09

me feels like it almost doesn't matter because

49:12

What we see plants doing what we now understand

49:14

they can do Simply

49:16

brings them into this realm of alert

49:19

active processing beings Which is a huge

49:21

step from how many of us were

49:23

raised to view them? which is more

49:26

like ornaments in our world or sort

49:28

of this decorative backdrop for our our

49:31

lives and Intelligence

49:33

is this thing that's loaded with so much Human

49:36

meaning I mean it's too muddled

49:38

up sometimes with academic notions

49:40

of intelligence and it has to be said has

49:42

been used as a tool to Separate

49:45

humans from other humans for forever So

49:48

is this even something we want to layer onto

49:50

plants and that's something that I

49:52

hear a lot of plant scientists talk about

49:54

They recognize more than anyone that plants

49:57

are not little humans. They don't want

49:59

their subjects to be reduced

50:01

in a way to human tropes or human

50:03

standards of either of those things. How

50:07

has writing this book actually changed

50:10

your outlook on your climate reporting?

50:12

I mean you took a break

50:14

from that in order to focus on

50:16

this issue and you're

50:18

going back to climate reporting. How does

50:20

learning about plants help us maybe

50:24

look at this larger problem in new ways

50:27

or tackle it? Yeah,

50:30

I came to thinking about plants from a

50:32

place of despair around climate and

50:34

reporting on climate change and

50:37

I have to be honest I am

50:39

not anywhere more hopeful about climate

50:42

change. It didn't solve that one

50:44

for me but it

50:46

did do something else. It

50:48

kind of re-enchanted the world

50:51

for me which has really strong effects

50:53

in how I come to

50:55

my job now covering climate change. I

50:58

feel much more attached to the material

51:00

stakes of what we stand

51:02

to lose. It starts

51:04

to seem that much more absurd that we're

51:06

doing anything that could impede the

51:09

continuation of all of these different lines

51:12

of evolutionary genius which

51:14

are embodied in plants and any other

51:16

species but you know I'm thinking a

51:18

lot about plants and I even

51:21

feel in myself like what's sitting

51:23

with all of this wonder around what

51:26

plants can do what that's done. I mean

51:29

I think a lot about Rachel Carson who at the end of

51:31

her life wrote a lot

51:33

about this that wonder is

51:35

a transformative emotion. It

51:39

leads away from exploitation.

51:41

Once you have offered something it's

51:43

very hard to feel a lack

51:45

of respect for it. Respect sort

51:47

of comes naturally out of that and

51:50

I think I sense that. I sense

51:52

both the system in which we're all

51:54

part this ecological web but also the

52:00

the lack of any excuse

52:02

for turning away from

52:04

destruction, that snuffing out

52:06

any one of these lines of plants

52:09

through early extinction, through

52:11

deforestation, just becomes patently

52:14

absurd. There's just no

52:16

excuse for it. Zoe

52:19

Schlanger, thank you so much for this conversation.

52:21

It's wonderful to talk to you. Zoe

52:24

Schlanger's new book is called The Light

52:27

Eaters, how the unseen world of plant

52:29

intelligence offers a new understanding of life

52:31

on earth. Fresh

52:34

Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh

52:37

Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our

52:40

technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

52:42

With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

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53:34

that sitting and swiping, your

53:36

body is adapting to your

53:38

technology. Learn how and what

53:40

you can do about it. I really felt

53:42

like the cloud in my brain

53:44

kind of dissipated. Once I started

53:47

realizing what a difference these

53:49

little breaks were making, there's no turning

53:51

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