Since the blockbuster success of his musical “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda has been busy: acting, directing, and composing for Disney projects, including the upcoming movie “Mufasa: The Lion King.”

But his new project is more personal, and a throwback in the best sense. Working with the playwright Eisa Davis, he has reimagined a movie from his childhood as a concept album. “The Warriors” is a cult classic released in 1979. “The Warriors are a gang from Coney Island, and they have to fight their way from the Bronx all the way back down to Coney Island in the course of the film,” Miranda tells David Remnick. The film reads as a nineteen-seventies period piece, but Miranda and Davis find a classical dimension to it. “The tale is an old tale. Sol Yurick, who wrote the novel the movie is based on, based it on the Anabasis, which is a soldier’s account of trying to get back home from war” in ancient Greece. “It’s this mythic story. . . . It doesn’t get more clear than that as a plotline.” To tell that story in song and rap, Miranda brought together a cast of legends including Lauryn Hill, Nas, Marc Anthony, members of the Wu-Tang Clan, and more. If releasing a concept album, meant to be listened to straight through, seems like a stretch for 2024 audiences, Miranda is unfazed. “What’s interesting about “Hamilton” is that no one I talked to thought it was a good idea when I was writing it. But I could see it. And it was the idea that wouldn’t leave me alone.”

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Starting January 1st, the criminal interest rate on predatory lending will be lowered, meaning it should be safer to take out payday and installment loans. But these businesses have a tendency to skirt the law, adding unexpected fees and insurance rates to keep borrowers in the hole.

Sam welcomes Donna Borden to the show - an organizer with ACORN. She’s been a victim to these loans, and is now fighting against them. Will the crackdown work and really help lower people’s payments? How can we make short term loans a real option for people struggling, without the sky-high payments?

Host: Sam Konnert

Credits: Aviva Lessard (Producer), Sam Konnert (Producer), Caleb Thompson (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), Max Collins (Director of Audio), Jesse Brown (Editor), Tony Wang (Artwork)

Guests: Donna Borden

Background reading:

• Debt struggles spark concerns - Toronto Star
• Anti-poverty advocates call payday lenders 'criminal,' urge feds to cap interest rates | CBC
• New rules to curb predatory lending still leave many vulnerable - Globe and Mail
• How a $200 payday loan cost over $31,000 - CBC Radio

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Yes, Canada bombed the Aurora Borealis.

But can you actually scatter that northernmost light with explosives? Why would you even try? And explosive boom aside, can you, on a cold clear quiet night, hear the northern lights? What is the sound of the Aurora Borealis?

Nicolas Lachapelle and Eloise Demers Pinard, trekked to Churchill Manitoba, and beyond, to try and answer these questions.

And that’s about as newsy and informational as things are gonna get.

Because as you will hear, today’s episode sounds a little bit different. It’s a bit more poetic than our regularly scheduled programming.

Or as our reporters will tell you, “…this is a story about that forgotten need to probe the sky and an epic journey through time and space on the edge of northern Canada.”

Happy Holidays.

Host: Jesse Brown

Credits:

Produced, recorded and directed by Éloïse Demers Pinard and Nicolas Lachapelle.

In dialogue with the composer Welcome John.

Inspired by the visionary works of Tom Demers and Peter Mettler.

With the voices of Jeremy Allen, George Alexander St-Clair, Harry Tutuk, James Wells, Roland Sawatsky and Chris Campbell.

Narration by Jacqueline Van de Geer.

Field research by Alain James Rioux Dubé.

Archival research by Emma Brunet.

Sound design and mix by Antonin Wyss.

Linguistic revision by Maureen Roberge.

Graphic design by Max Rhéault and the Criterium Design bureau.

The archives are from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Library and Archives Canada.

Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer)

Additional audio assistance: Caleb Thompson

Jesse Brown (Editor and Publisher)

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