Learnt Up

Lorraine and Sarah are givin’ the people what they want, with another episode all about food! They’re having a cross-cultural potluck! The hosts invite comedians Betsy Stover and Marian Yesufu, and hostess-with-the-mostest Grace Kountzhouse, to bring dishes from their respective cultures and chat about the intersections of food and family. If you like plantains, stews, and big bowls of slop -- and if the idea of a “jello salad” intrigues you -- this is the ep for you.

A lotta lotta folks recommend a lotta lotta movies as Learnt Up homework for your hosts. For this episode, Lorraine and Sarah are discussing two filmmakers whose films they have been sleepin’ on despite them having been recommended time and time again.

As far as Learnt Up is concerned, 2 Jews Talking is a varsity podcast team and their hosts, Joshua Heller and Erika Brooks-Adickman, are a couple of heavy hitters. On this episode, Josh and Erika swing by to share the shame with Lorraine and Sarah.

Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on board games! Some people are visual learnters, some learnt by hearing, some learnt by acts of service....oh wait, that’s the 5 love languages. Anyway the point is, the gals invited their friends to come over and play Secret Hitler and now they understand fascism!

The Standards and Practices department at Learnt Up Podcast fainted during the recording of this episode - it’s the one where Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on ethnic slurs!!! They explore the origins of age-old bad words like “kike,” ”yid,” and “theeeee ennnnnn worrrrrrd.”

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a SUPER EPISODE OF LEARNT UP! In this one, Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on comic book superheroes. Sarah schools us on how Magneto’s superpowers first fully activated in a concentration camp, while Lorraine explains how the Black Panther has to eat a ceremonial heart-shaped herb to harness his powers. Blessup to Stan Lee & Jack Kirby for bringing Magneto and Black Panther into the world.

In this episode, Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on black and Jewish rap icon, DRAKE, or as Lorraine affectionately calls him "the Jewish Canadian non-rapist Kobe Bryant of hip hop." Sarah ups the ante on her appreciation for Drake's artistry and impressive career moves by checking out his work on Degrassi: The Next Generation for the first time. Then, Lorraine and Sarah take a break from discussing Drake to learn themselves up on Cardi B - that regular degular shmegular girl from the Bronx.

Friend of the show, Gil Ozeri stops by to get learnt up on Jewish representation in video games. He prompts Lorraine & Sarah to Google dudes like B.J. Blazkowicz of Wolfenstein fame & unnamed Jewish mobsters from Grand Theft Auto. Gil is unflappable during quiz time and everyone’s dad is super proud. Speaking of which, Lorraine and Sarah are psyched for Gil’s new daughter to get learnt up on everything via cool parents and her cool aunt, Alexandra Ozeri.

Learnters, this has been a YEAR. If 2017 were a pizza and someone served it to you, you’d be like, “Umm this pizza has hurricanes and Harvey Weinstein on it; I ordered pepperoni.” Luckily, you’ve got us, and we’ve got you. The gals look back on Learnt Up’s first year and share their favorite memories. Of course, no LU ep would be complete without an airing of shame, and there’s plenty of that. If you get nothing else from the podcast, remember this: alcohol is poison and knowledge is power.

Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on holidays! Lorraine has some notes for Kwanzaa. In Hollywood terms, Kwanzaa, you’re still about 7 or 8 drafts away from anything good -- in fact, maybe you should switch paths. Meanwhile, Sarah forgets the story of Chanukah. Everyone’s ancestors are disappointed. But in the end, the gals learn the true meaning of the holidays: sharing love with your podcast co-host, and roasting your relatives for bad gifts!

Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on braids!! This episode of Learnt Up contains Lorraine and Sarah’s painstaking field research on the subject. They visit Colorist and Natural Hair Specialist Amena BelledeSoleil’s studio. Amena BelledeSoleil fields the ladies’ questions with grace and she happens to be an excellent educator for anyone out there in need of a hair care sherpa.

And now it’s time for mommy to put on her robe, put on her cold cream, and pour herself a Baileys on the rocks cuz we have a guest here to do all the work! Matt Wyatt - filmmaker, host of This Is Not It Podcast - swings by to share his fancy European lineage and tales of castle-dwelling revolutionaries in the olden days who protested English royals and got their heads 86’ed. Matt is *awash* in privilege, and the Learnt Up gals enjoy learning from the Oppressor.

Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on books! The Learnt Up hosts discuss Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Elie Wiesel's Night. If you're wondering how Sarah would react to surviving the Holocaust, this is the episode for you. If you want to hear Lorraine's answer to the question, "why do you need to be so black all the time?" (hint: "why do white people need to be so white all the time?"), you'll enjoy this listen. Watch out Oprah's book club! The Learnt Up book club has arrived!

Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on sitcoms! Lorraine watches Sanford and Son, a groundbreaking show with a cantankerous black protagonist who pushed the limits of what you can say on TV. Sarah enjoys the Mary Tyler Moore Show for the first time. If you’re scratching your head, going “Wait, Mary Tyler Moore wasn’t Jewish,” congratulations! You know more than Sarah did when she (excitedly) pitched this topic. Dad is not proud.

Yo yo yo! You’re listening to Learnt Up in the Morning, with DJ Ebro and DJ Rosenberg. Sike! It’s Lorraine and Sarah, talking about legendary NYC radio station Hot 97!

Lorraine and Sarah welcome two world news savvy guests, Shereen Younes and Anna Hossnieh, from Ethnically Ambiguous Podcast! Shereen and Anna keep it so so real as they get learnt up on The Rohingya Crisis that is currently unfolding in Myanmar - formerly Burma. The ladies discuss how much they hate oppression, love food and appreciate Steve Jobs’s Syrian identity! Subscribe to Ethnically Ambiguous podcast right now!

Lorraine & Sarah share the shame with actress & UCB writer-performer, Ele Woods. The incredibly warm and not-spooky-at-all Black Boo & Jew Boo for this episode hop on the mic to get real with some storytelling. Zora Bikangaga tells all about the Ludacris fan he dated - the one that got away and Raphael Bob-Waksberg shares a piece he wrote about phrases he has never ever ever heard a Jewish person say like “I’m on cloud 9!” and “I can't complain.”

Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on inventors! Do you like playing video games and not eating rotten meat? Then you have a Jew Boo and a Black Boo to thank, respectively! Sarah discovers the only good thing that has ever happened at Port Authority, and Lorraine pays homage to the King of Chill (that prob wasn’t his nickname, but it could and SHOULD’ve been). And watch out, Mark Cuban, cuz the gals have some hot inventions of their own.

Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on booze! Join the gals as they explore what Hennessy means to black Americans and why kosher wine is more than just Manischewitz -- and by "explore" we mean get pretty buzzed. Did you know cognac is made from grapes? Did you know certain kosher wine can't be handled by non-Jews? (Hands off, Chad.) If you like your podcasts like you like your men (unfiltered, uncut, and black and Jewish) this is the ep for you!

Lorraine and Sarah get learnt up on black and Jewish feuds. Sarah covers the scorching hot Hollywood feud between Elizabeth Taylor & Debbie Reynolds while Lorraine sorts through the mess that is the Whitney/Bobby saga.