David Remnick

Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of TuneArts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell.

This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Decken.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.

Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known.

I'm David Remnick, and each week on The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Walz, Katonji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Charlemagne the God, and so many more.

That's all on The New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick.

Julio Torres is one of the most original minds working in comedy right now.

He first made his name as a writer on Saturday Night Live, and then he went on to make two shows for HBO that remain cult favorites, Los Espookys and Fantasmas.

Torres also wrote and directed the film Problemista, about a toy designer who's facing deportation.

There's a really unique surrealism to his humor, and when staff writer Michael Schulman profiled Julio Torres for The New Yorker, the piece ran under the headline Extraordinary Alien.

Julio Torres speaking with The New Yorker's Michael Shulman.

More in a moment.

The New Yorker's Michael Schulman with Julio Torres on location at 3rd Avenue Dollar and More.

Color Theories is Julio Torres' new HBO special, and it begins streaming later this week.

That's it for the program today.

Thanks for joining us.

And I hope you'll join us next time.