Podcast Review: ‘99 Percent Invisible’
The 99% Invisible Power Broker Book Club
When “Star Wars Episode VI: Revenge of the Sith” was released in 2005, it was clear to me, and I think everybody else, that the literary inspiration was “Julius Caesar.” After watching “Sith” again, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Darth Vader was George Lucas’s answer to Robert Moses. I’ll talk more about those parallels, but clearly Moses has been on my mind since I started reading Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker.”
After long being friends with Mr. Caro and sharing the same editor — the late, and truly great, Robert Gottlieb — I finally cracked open “Power Broker” for several reasons. In January, three friends and I, none of whom are necessarily prone to reading 1,200-page biographies of city officials, decided we would read it at the same time.
On top of that, I learned that one of my favorite podcasts, “99 Percent Invisible,” was going to do the deepest of all possible dives into the book, a chapter-by-chapter breakdown to be stretched out over 12 months and 12 episodes, each covering a hundred or so pages. Now that was too much for me to resist.
Known to fans as “99pi,” “99 Percent Invisible” is a remarkable show, nearly 600 episodes strong. Host Roman Mars specializes in finding topics that seem minute or inconsequential, and shows that even what might seem to be the least interesting subject imaginable can be endlessly fascinating.
Before the latest episode, titled “The Los Angeles Leaf Blower Wars,” I, being a lifelong Manhattanite, barely even knew what a leaf-blower was; now I firmly realize why they’re so important and matter to so many people, both pro and con. Mr. Mars is both knowledgeable and likable, just serious enough and just silly enough — and more than entertaining enough — for me to want to listen to anything that he wants to talk about.
For his subseries on “The Power Broker,” he’s brought in lots of help, practically an entire cavalry. His co-host on the series is a former head writer for both “Mystery Science Theater” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Elliott Kalan, and is currently the force behind another podcast, “The Flop House.” Like Roman Mars, Mr. Kalan is a creature of both deep intellect and deep humor.
Messrs. Mars and Kalan discuss what happens in each section of “The Power Broker,” not only summarizing but offering commentary, and, more often than not, a highly humorous take on all the major moments in the Moses saga — such as his rise to power, the use and abuse of that power, and his relationships with other landmark figures of the 20th century, including Al Smith, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Fiorello LaGuardia.
Not only that, they bring in guests who help them to show that this book is one that should be read by everybody and a story that should be known to all — and is a lot of fun in the process. They started with Conan O’Brien, who was so effective in Lizzie Gottlieb’s beautiful 2022 documentary about her father and Mr. Caro, “Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb.” They continued with Mr. Caro himself and, among others, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Come to think of it, Ms. Gottlieb herself would be a great talker on the subject of this book.)
Now, back to Darth Vader: I do know Gottlieb watched most of the “Star Wars” movies — I watched at least a few with him — but I don’t know if Mr. Caro ever did. Still, when, at the end of “Episode Six,” we see the hero, Annakin Skywalker, become the villain, Darth Vader, there’s undeniably a lot of Robert Moses in there. As Caro shows, Moses also started out as a hero, someone who’s only aim was to help people and do good.
Yet relatively early in his career he grew obsessed with power, pure power for its own sake. This isn’t the standard definition of corruption — politicians, businessmen, and other men of power become corrupt because they want financial gain for themselves, or they want to take advantage of people in their orbit, such as women. Moses was always, in his own term, “money honest”: He was never accused of lining his own pockets or sexually harassing his secretaries.
Like Moses, Annakin/Vader, wants to help people. In “Episode Six” at least, he still thinks of himself as one of the good guys when he helps the new, self-appointed emperor overturn the Republic. He thinks he’s bringing “order to the galaxy” by imposing his vision upon it, and no one had better get in his way. If the road to you-know-where is paved with good intentions, it was Moses who built it — and paved it.
I know of a couple Moses-centric facts, both related to pop culture, that are not in the book — probably deliberately. First, the late Tony Bennett repeatedly told a story about being in the first group of average New Yorkers, i.e., anyone other than dignitaries, to walk across the Triboro Bridge on the day it opened in July 1936, when Tony was 9, singing “Marching Along Together.”
Second, there’s a verse of Cole Porter’s “You’re the Top” that references “Commissioner Moses” as being “the top,” though this possibl was added at some point later on, and not by Porter himself. And that’s about it, really.
When I told a friend that I was finally reading “The Power Broker,” and that I had put it off because the book was infamously lengthy, he responded, “By the time you get to the end of it, you’re going to wish that it was twice as long.” He was right.
