The instant when love connects

plus, Primary Colors meets All the President’s Men meets All Fours.

May 15, 2025

On June 11 in New York City, I’m interviewing Allison Williams at the Tribeca Festival. I’ve been re-watching her work — Girls, M3GAN, Get Out, Cheryl (with Jake and Amir) — and digging into really thought-provoking profiles of her. I’m getting excited. Come out! Tickets are here.

Picking up a key to a friend’s apartment. Celebrating at an office party for a place you no longer work. Riding in an Uber and striking up a conversation with the driver.

These are some of the chance meetings we heard about when we asked for your in-person love stories.

This episode was so fun to make because when you tell these stories, you can hear the GLEE as you describe the moment love hit. Something wasn’t happening, and then it was. BAM!

Listen to our latest episode

I thought of these love stories while marveling at a springtime fern this week. The wonder of how all of a sudden, a new branch of an ancient phenomenon shoots out, unwinds and then starts blowing in the wind.

Your love stories also prompted me to dig out this photo from 2011, when my now-husband Arthur and I were having our first one-on-one conversation at a friend’s summer party. Someone from above snapped this picture just as — BAM! — something started happening.

I can’t remember exactly, but we were either talking about the Vietnam War, falconry, or a mutual friend we discovered we both knew. A West Virginian named Katie.

And listen, I know dating apps have led to connections for many people, but we can all agree that those love stories aren’t quite as cinematic as an in-person meet-cute. For our Slate Plus listeners this week, we offer an appreciation of rom-com movies. I talked with Slate culture writer Sam Adams and Slate’s resident rom-com expert in Slack, Katie Rayford, about our favorites, from Broadcast News to Notting Hill. Listen. (Not a Slate Plus member yet? C’mon, join us!)

‘Fresh Air’ Appreciation Corner

Last week, I talked with writer and podcast producer Julia Barton about a series she’s working on called “Audio Ancestors” for the audio storytelling website Transom. Towards the end of our conversation, Julia asked me about my interviewing heroes. That got me talking, again, about Terry Gross and Fresh Air.

Terry did something remarkable earlier this month. She offered a eulogy for her husband, Francis Davis, a jazz critic and writer. He died on April 14 after a long illness. They were together for 47 years. Terry shared his work as a jazz writer with us and played excerpts of the music that moved him. It’s a beautiful listen about love and American art over the last half-century.

I also smiled broadly throughout Fresh Air co-host Tonya Mosley’s recent interview with Danny McBride of The Righteous Gemstones. Like, when she asked him, “Did you grow up with a lot of cursing around you?” His answer: “You know, I didn't, but I loved cursing!”

40 Years of Rocking to Support American Family Farms

Farm Aid announced details this week of its 40th Anniversary concert in September. Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young, Dave Matthews, Margo Price, and more will be in Minneapolis on September 20, 2025. Presale tickets are available now.

Farm Aid started in 1985, as a wave of foreclosures hit small family farming operations in what came to be known as the Farm Crisis. (Musician Margo Price and I talked in a 2023 episode about her family losing their Illinois farm during that era.)

“One of the very chilling things in the 40th year announcement has been that right now is very reminiscent of the year that Farm Aid started,” Farm Aid co-executive director Jennifer Fahy told me in a phone call this week, with slow loan approvals, rising costs, uncertain credit markets and tapering Covid-era supports converging all at once.

I’m the granddaughter of a farmer, and my cousins still work the same land he did. I appreciate rock stars lending some of their shine to provide financial, legal, and emotional support to family farming and ranching businesses trying to keep going while adjusting to changes in the climate and global markets.

From Somewhere with Anna Sale

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