Politician and businessman Gavin Newsom has served as the 40th governor of California since 2019. Prior to his governorship, Newsom was the lieutenant Governor of California and the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco. Now in the final years of his term, Newsom reflects on the challenges and victories of the past seven years, most pressing being the wildfires that destroyed areas of Southern California this past January. A native to San Francisco, Newsom is familiar with the state’s natural wildfires but has seen a dramatic increase in their devastation during his term.

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2021 marked the premiere of Lucy Walker’s documentary film “Bring Your Own Brigade” which unpacked the catastrophic California wildfires of 2018, The Camp Fire and The Woolsey Fire. Now four years after the film was released, Southern California recently experienced even more devastating wildfires in January 2025. The most damaging fires were the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire. For Lucy Walker, history is repeating itself at an even larger scale and her 2021 film is even more relevant today. It’s a traumatic revisiting of difficult subject matter, and here Lucy shares what she has learned about wildfires since making her film and what she thinks can be done to prevent wildfires from becoming even more catastrophic.

Listen to Alec’s 2021 conversation with Lucy Walker here.

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Christopher Rothko never thought he would have a career in the art world but he has become the driving force behind preserving his father, painter Mark Rothko’s, legacy. Christopher along with his sister Kate are the copyright holders to their father’s work and oversee exhibitions of Mark Rothko paintings around the world. With a background in clinical psychology, Christopher is also known for his writing about his father's art, life, and legacy, as well as his own reflections on the emotional and philosophical aspects of Mark Rothko’s paintings. Through his books and public work, Christopher has enabled the art of Mark Rothko to continue to resonate with audiences worldwide.

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