Maya Browne, The Road Not Taken

 

92-176 Maya Browne

SPEAKERS

Will Bachman, Maya Browne

Will Bachman 00:00

Hello and welcome to The 92 Report conversations with members of the  Harvard and Radcliffe class of 1992 I’m your host, Will Bachman, and I am  delighted to be here today with Maya Browne. Maya, welcome to the show.

Maya Browne 00:16

Thanks so much, Will. I’m so happy to be here.

Will Bachman 00:20

So, Maya, tell us about your journey since graduating from Harvard.

Maya Browne 00:25

Oh dear, that is a long way back. So, what was happening when I left  Harvard? I’d written my thesis, had to rewind a little bit. So, my senior year

really sort of set the tone for what was going to happen most of my life after Harvard, and I had no idea that that was true. So, during my senior year, I  wrote two major things in my world at that time. One was my senior thesis,  which was called Idealizing Vision, and it was about how magazine editors,  photographers, and designers had shaped the ideal female form in the 20th century, and the other thing was an article for Essence magazine about  eating disorders, and it was the first article about eating disorders that took  data from women of color. All the other studies said that women of color did not have anorexia or bulimia, because the study was in Columbus, Ohio.  There are no white people there. Hello. So, essence, and also through a  class I took at Harvard on eating disorders, I knew who all the top  researchers were, and essence funded a study that article wound up  winning this award called the Excellence in Media Merit Award, the EMA.  So, you know, here I am graduating, I’m working for James Truman at  details, I’m an assistant, and I have to tell him that I need to leave to go to  the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria and give a speech, and he was like,  what’s going, who are you? So, yeah, that was very interesting. So then I  went back to work, but working for James was really fantastic. He is a really creative, great person. He gave me a lot of leeway. The internet was a big  new thing, so my job, aside from answering the phone, was answering all  the reader mail, email, because nobody – there was no one who was  equipped to do that, so I had this gigantic computer, and I would get notes  from people about stories, and then also I’m not sure this is an industry  secret that I’m sharing with you here, but

Will Bachman 02:51

if

Maya Browne 02:52

I didn’t get ones that were interesting enough, I would make them up, and  then call my friends and say, “is it okay if I say that you said this”, that was  also fun, so.. oh, oh my gosh, I totally forgot. So, how I got the job at Conde

Nast also has to do.. so one of the people that read my senior thesis was.  oh my gosh,Professor Peretz, and he knew the Newhouse family, and so he asked me to come see him in November in Boston, which I did, and he  gave me a letter that I never read. I got on a plane. I went to Paris, and I  was meeting with Andre Leontali the next day, and I had no idea what’s  going on, and I still don’t know what was in that letter. I have no idea, but  the next thing I know, I’m meeting with Andre Leon Talley, I’m meeting with  the head of publishing, I’m meeting with like all these people, and they are  like, well, you know, you don’t have a visa, so how, you know, like, how  would we be able, how would you be able to work here, and all this stuff,  and I said, well, you know, I could work, I could work as an intern for a  while, and then like figure out all that kind of stuff, and I also took a side job  as a fit model for this young fashion designer, so it was a very bizarre  period, so so then I decided that it would be better if I actually could earn  money, because one does need to to earn money, so I took a job with  Conde Nast in the US, and that’s how I started working for James Truman.  But, like, the second day I was working there, one of the Newhouses was  running GQ at that time, and he called the switchboard at details, looking  for me. So James came back from lunch, and there was this message on a  piece of paper, because you know they took messages on paper back

Will Bachman 05:06

then, right? It

Maya Browne 05:07

says, you know, Jonathan Newhouse is calling for Maya, and he was like,  he came back, he was like, is he calling for you because he’s trying to get  me, and I was like, I don’t know, maybe, so…But no, he was calling for me

because he was trying to tell me that I should come back to London and  work on the advertising side, as he and the other people at Paris Vogue  that I talked to were like, “she should be in sales”, and I was like, “I have no  interest in sales, like zero, I’m so sorry, Mister Newhouse, that’s such a nice

offer, but I’m a writer, and I want to write, and I want to be in editorial”.  That’s kind of a decision I, I made for myself. And so, like, I’m going to stay  here. James was listening, because when you’re an assistant, you know  your boss can basically hear your phone calls, and I hung up, and he was  like, “You’re insane.” He’s like, “you’re officially insane”. So we had a really  good time. My other job there was that he would send me to parties he  didn’t want to go to. He was kind of, the it guy downtown at that period. This is like the early 90s, and by the way, that office is one block from where I  live now. Oh, wow. The building I live in now is the place I went for my side  gig, which was I played my violin in music videos. Def Jam was on the third  floor of this building, so I was here for castings all the time. At lunchtime,  you know, go by Cath Time Cafe, there’s Russell Simmons, there’s Brett  Ratner. I mean, it was deep 90s neighborhood over here, so it’s just crazy  that I end up living here now. It’s just very, very strange. So, yeah, so after I  worked at Details, James wound up getting asked to come uptown to the  mothership to like run the company, and he was like, you’re going to be so  bored, I was like, okay, well, I want to go work at another magazine, I really  like this, so he helped me get a job working an interview for Ingrid Sissy,  just on a temporary basis, but I wanted to, like, I kind of wanted to check  out a different, and while I was there, I met this really great writer and  musician called Dmitri Ehrlich, and Dimitri asked me to play in his band,  Dimitri and the Supreme 5000 So we had a pretty epic gig at CBGB  Gallery.

Will Bachman 07:31

Okay, it

Maya Browne 07:32

was hilarious. So, okay, so then this guy named Spaceman, who was the  bassist for Parliament, was at CB’s the night we played, and he said, “Hey, I really need a violinist that can do work on television,” and I was like, “What  kind of work on television?” He was like, “Well, there’s this show called New

York Undercover, and I’m doing like talent, I get talent for them, and they’re  people who can actually play, and there’s a scene where they go to a club  and you guys actually play”, and I was like, “okay, and I was like, well, yeah,

call me if, like, whatever”. So, couple weeks later, he calls, he’s like, “hey, do you want to play It’s a Man’s World with James Brown?” “ Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. Yes, thank you.” So I did that. The next one was BB King, and then  Brett Ratner started casting me in all his videos, so I played with D’Angelo,  who else. I can’t even remember. See, that’s how old I am. I can’t even  remember what videos I was in. I don’t even care. So I was in a bunch of  videos. Let’s just say that was in a bunch of videos. It was really random,  and I knew that, like, I didn’t want to do.. I didn’t want to be in the music  business, partially because my half siblings, their mom, we have the same  biological dad, they’re older than me. Their mom remarried a guy who, at  the time, was the president of Motown, his name was Ewart Abner, and  Abner knew that I was a violinist, and that I like to sing, and he had been  warning me since I was a little kid, do not, do not exist business, so then  you know I very intelligently got into like publishing and film way better, so  yeah, so so the crazy story continues, so then I find myself working at a  magazine called Heart & Soul, which was a fitness and beauty magazine  for women of color. I never expected to be doing that, and the base of my  job was to try out makeup and fitness classes and get sent on trips. It was  kind of. I was like, this is a job?okay. So that was the time period in time  when the first dotcom bubble was about to rise, and so all these recruiters  were cold calling people. I got offered a job in the advertising business in  San Francisco, and I kind of wanted to go back to the Bay Area. I’d been  living in New York after school, and so I did. I worked in advertising for  three four years, first as a copywriter, and then as a, you know, like mid level creative director, and then I got married to a Swedish man named  Peter Brattander, who was a painter, and Peter and I went to Maya  Chorangel, one of my roommates, and one of my classmates, Maya  Chorangel, was getting married in Bali, and so we decided that we would  have our ceremony in Bali as well, so off we went. While we are in Bali on

our answering machine, I get a message from Spaceman, who I haven’t  talked to for a while, and he’s like, “Hey, Trent Reznor needs a violinist on  the MTV Awards to play with Nine Inch Nails. Can you make it?” I was like,  well, this is the one time I can’t, like seriously. Oh my god, I cannot go. I’m  so angry. It’s like I can’t go. Anyway, cut to many years later, I get into the  film business, and I’m working on Ray, working for Taylor Hackford, and I’m  standing on set one day, we’re in New Orleans, and someone walks up  behind me and says, “You know, you blew off that gig, and we got someone who really sucked and also was not cute, you owe me dinner’ and I was  like, “What is happening? Trent Reznor is standing there. I’m like, okay,  right. So, yeah, that was interesting.

Maya Browne 12:11

he’s very, very gentlemanly and sweet, good person, and friends with  Taylor, so, so we thought we were making Ray, we thought that was going  to go straight to video, and that four people were going to watch it ever,  instead it got theatrical distribution and won six Oscars. What do you know? So then things got really crazy, people started coming out of the woodwork. I really didn’t understand anything about even the smallest dose of fame,  and you know, I was Taylor’s assistant, and then, like, development  executive, that’s like the smallest ant on the set, you know, but everyone,  people started coming, like people are jumping out of the bushes, and like  commandeering me in the coffee place with scripts, and I was like, “You  guys are like, you’re insane. I’ve been on one set in my whole life, I don’t  know anything about this,’ like it’s crazy.So then this Mormon girl that I had  met, you know, around, had these friends that had worked on this great  movie called Napoleon Dynamite, and the youngest member of their crew  from from Brigham Young University, BYU, was graduating, and he had  written a script, and they’d had the financing all lined up, and at the last  minute it fell out of place, though. This girl remembered me, and she called  me. She’s like, “You know, these friends of mine need an investor, and I  don’t know why, but I think you can find one.”And I was like, “What? It’s like,

what are you talking about?” She was like, “My friends have this movie,  they need an investor, and I think that you can find one”, and I was like,  “what have you done?” and she’s like, well, like, told them that you could  find an investor, and I was like, oh my god, oh no, I was like, this is disaster,  so I have no idea what I’m doing, so I call my big brother, he’s an  entertainment lawyer, so like, okay, calm down here, and he like gives me,  he’s like, you need to set up an LLC, you need to do this, you need to do  that, and then serendipity, another member of our class called me, I hadn’t  talked to this person in a long time, and six weeks later, the two of us  wound up financing the film. It’s called American Fork. It actually got shot,  which, you know, I found out after the fact, a lot of movies never even get  made, so that was interesting, and it got shot right away, because they  already had everything kind of in place, and those guys are really well  connected in Salt Lake City via the Mormon thing, so they could pull a lot of strings and call-in favors, so anyway, so it got made, and then I had to leave Los Angeles, because when people heard about what, how it had come  together, I really couldn’t, I just couldn’t handle, I couldn’t handle like the  number of projects and and people that I didn’t know, who were like  following me around, it was just weird. I was like, I gotta get out of here. So  came back to New York, went to business school, went back to business  school, and learned in business school that the only business with lower  margins in the film business is the airline business. I was like, no wonder.  Yeah. Anyway, I should have known that. So, then I was like, well, I was  already in philanthropy anyway, so I might as well do philanthropy for real,  right? So,

Will Bachman 16:16

okay, when was this bit? When was the business school time period? Maya Browne 16:20

Business school, I graduate. I was in the class of 2000 2011 in the  executive executive MBA program. At NYU Stern So, this is like, we’re  getting to modern times,

Will Bachman 16:29

all right. My chronology, there was a lot.

Maya Browne 16:32

It’s all bananas. So, my mentor at the time was on the board of Robin Hood, and I said to him that I was interested in philanthropy, but I didn’t know  anything about philanthropy, and I’d heard that, you know, it could be tricky.  So he said, “You know what? Go talk to the people at Robin Hood. They  have this thing called the board placement program, like they’ll introduce  you to the right kind of place, and you know you’re going to have to sort of  prove to them that your skills for fundraising are transferable to this  business, so next thing I know I’m running the New York marathon for the  Robin Hood team. Great, so I’m running the marathon, and my friends all  think it’s hilarious, and luckily they’re all really generous, and so Robin  Hood is like, okay, great. So you really can do this. So they placed me on  the board of The Door. The Door is the one thing in my life, other than  graduating from Harvard, that I’m most proud of. It is, I’ve served on the  board there for 13 years. It is a really well-resourced really caring,  amazingly connected family for 10,000 runaway homeless and  undocumented kids, and the people who started at 52 years ago were  smart enough to put things in place so that they had a building that was the  whole block on Broome and Varick, as a right around the time I came onto  the board, we sold the air rights to a developer, which gave us a significant  endowment, and then so now we have, we have like apartment buildings,  we have healthcare, we have psychological counseling, job placement, art  therapy. We were programmed with the Whitney, kind of anything that they  fashion design, anything they want to do, and also they can go there and  eat anybody who’s a member, and you get to be a member by showing up

between like 11 and four any day, and going through like an interview, just  so they can make sure that you’re in the right place, that you don’t need  services that we don’t provide. So, yeah, so I got involved with the door, and yeah, I kind of haven’t looked back. I mean, I did. Ari Gold did talk me into  getting involved in one last film, but that was just as he could only do that  because we went to high school together.

Will Bachman 19:13

Okay,

Maya Browne 19:14

and talk to Ethan, he will tell you that I was like running away from Ari about this for like 10 years, and he finally was like, “Damn it, you have to do this.  So that’s I got involved in Brother versus Brother, but aside from that, what

I’ve been doing since business school is spending time learning how to  help educate kids in different ways, so work as an international teacher for  a while, and then right now what I’m doing is I’m working with Brownstone  as an educational consultant, I do Executive Function Counseling, and also  College Application Consulting, and the reason I’m doing that is I want to be able to do those things for the kids at the door when I want to step down  from the board, and I, you know, I called Josh Brown, who’s also in our  class, and explained that, and he was like, cool, great, because they, they  have this very philanthropic philosophy also, and they like, you know, send  tutors to the YMCA in downtown Brooklyn, and like, to they want to develop  a whole kind of nonprofit like wing of what they do. So I thought, okay, this  will be great, and it’s been super fun. It’s been super fun, and it’s also  teaching me what I need to know, and I think I’ll be able to help some kids  at the door in a more hands-on way when I get a bit older, and I don’t want  to be on the on the board anymore, so

Will Bachman 21:01

I will give a short, I will give a short plug for Brother Versus Brother. Last  year I was down at South by Southwest, which is my first time going there,  and you maybe you saw that I was going there, and I was so grateful that  you got me ticket to that movie, I think it was completely sold out, but you  slipped me in. It was one of the most amazing movies I’ve seen in years.  And so, anybody I highly recommend, Brother Versus Brother, and it’s  versus like the plural of verse, right? And it’s, it’s, it’s just an extraordinary  film. It’s sort of a real-time film of two brothers walking around San  Francisco, you know, playing, playing a gig, and it just, you must see this  movie. Is it available streaming now, or is it still doing festivals? No,

Maya Browne 21:56

it’s not yet available streaming, it is doing festivals, they are doing, also  doing screenings, I have a feeling it’s going to be placed in the very new  feature. I can’t really say much, but, but yeah, it’s that what you just said,  that was my reaction to it when I saw it in the form it was in when Ari  contacted me, yeah, it was just super touching and beautiful. So, and it  seemed to me it would be a shame not to do whatever I could to help them. So,

Will Bachman 22:37

absolutely incredible, incredible film, very cool that you’re involved in that.  So, what you just shared was a

Maya Browne 22:44

wacky,

Will Bachman 22:46

I mean, what a bananas, amazing, like wild ride that you’ve had, bananas,  yeah, and so there’s these elements, which any one of them you could  have continued on in career ABC or D, you had like you’re doing like violin  and music and magazine and writing, and you asked to do editorial and

advertising and movie business, and people were telling us a bit more  about when you say you were going around LA, people were like trailing  you and stuff. Give us a little bit more color, just give it, give me a visual.  What was happening there? What?

Maya Browne 23:28

So, here’s this is the dark side of LA. So, okay, so the Oscars happen, and  Oscar week there are all these parties and events, which, when you see  them on Entertainment Tonight, or like in magazines, it looks like a lot of  fun. That was more work than running the marathon. I mean, you have to  change outfits four times a day, you have to like be on like 24/7 and  constantly people are coming up, if you’re associated with any of the  movies that are nominated, there is this, I mean, it’s like it’s like a magnetic  field, and people are just like everyone, just it was like terrifying, it was  terrifying to me, because I’ve always been a behind the scenes kind of  person, and like writing, I never was into acting or like any of that stuff,  Okay, I’ll tell you, really. So I was waiting at the Coffee Bean for my daily  dose of sugar, and whatever, that some vanilla latte thing that probably is  like taking years off my life. So, I was waiting in the line, and out of the  corner of my eye, I see this guy go outside. He was in the line, he gets out  of the line, he goes outside, and he comes back. And then he starts like  moving up the line and I’m like, what is going on, and I’m like, yeah, there’s  probably like there’s probably someone famous here, right? So I ignore him, get to the line, get to the front of the line, and they’re trying to take my order, and he’s trying to hand me a script, and I was like,” dude, I’m trying to order. What are you doing?” He’s like, “well, I heard”. I was like, “okay. Hi, what’s  your name? A, what’s your name? B, like, you heard what from who? C,  like, I’m trying to order coffee.” What? Just, yeah, this is all wrong.

Will Bachman 25:40

Okay,

Maya Browne 25:40

so yeah, just not my, not my scene. So,

Will Bachman 25:48

and some people, that’s kind of the aspiration, is to be that person who is  the, you know, center of the thing, right? You

Maya Browne 25:56

tyou might think that’s your aspiration, yeah, be careful what you wish for.

Will Bachman 26:02

really? Okay, yeah. How did you.. how did you transit? I mean, you had  been doing various television appearances, and so forth, and it seems like  you’re this is like the hero’s journey, and you keep resisting the call, right?

Maya Browne 26:17

Like, no, I’m gonna go this other way, whoops, here it is again. It’s it.

Will Bachman 26:24

There’s a lot of Sliding Doors in your story, a lot of come to London and do  advertising sales. No, I don’t want to come to Hollywood and be a producer. No, I don’t want to do that. So, what are the other things that you’ve said no

to? It seems like people keep getting drawn to you and asking you to do  stuff for them.

Maya Browne 26:46

I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like that to me. What it seems like to me is I’m  curious about things. I like people, so I keep in touch with a lot of friends,  and I go to things, you know, when people are having some friends of mine  had a cocktail party last night, that was, I found out after the fact, also  raising funds for a documentary, and I was like, oh great, so, but it’s, you  know, I think it’s mostly that I like people, and all these things that have  happened have always been through, through friends or people that I, yeah,

friends, and a lot of the friends are people I met at school, so I don’t know, I  feel like it’s a lot of luck, I mean we were lucky, we were lucky to be at  Harvard, and to be in our class, and I feel like, because of that, I’ve  continued to be lucky.

Will Bachman 27:50

There were several strands, and I’m curious to get, like, the current state of  some of them. So, playing the violin, is that still happening? Writing, or is  that still happening? Uh, sounds like you were doing a lot of fitness, you  know. Magazine still doing fitness. Tell us about current state of these  different strands of your life.

Maya Browne 28:08

Okay, so music. So I’m on the board, also on the board of Quogue Chamber Music. My partner and I have a beach house in Quogue and it’s  a, you know, beach villages usually are not high on culture, but this village  is full of nerds like me, and so we have like chamber music, we have like a  theater, we have like, you know, all these things that like a small temporary  town usually doesn’t have. So, yeah, so through that organization I found a  great violin teacher, and I started playing again. I hadn’t been playing when  I got into the film business. I just, I had to stop. I just didn’t have any time,  so now I have more time. So I’ve started up again. It’s fun, and I play for  fun. And then let’s see, writing. I do a lot of writing in the course of helping  fundraise for the door. I send out appeals, and also I usually wind up  overseeing most of the social media and stuff for Quogue Chamber Music.  So, on two fronts, I have like writing things going, and then fitness, fitness  just became part of my, I mean, it just became part of my life. So that’s kind of my sanity. So,

Will Bachman 29:30

what’s your fitness thing? Are you a runner, cyclist, swimmer, weightlifting?  What classes? What

Maya Browne 29:36

I like classes. I used to be a runner. I kind of decided three years ago I was  like, you know, I might not want to be pounding away on my joints so much,  so I switched to Pilates, and then I do, you know, cardio, whatever, walk on  the treadmill, ride. A bike, all that kind of stuff, but I feel like if I do that and I

meditate for like 20 minutes in the morning, then I’m going to have a really  good day. So that’s what I do.

Will Bachman 30:16

Of all the writing that you’re doing in the different magazine work, is there  any crazy story that they sent you on or destination that you know kind of  pops to mind that you tell folks about?

Maya Browne 30:28

No. Oh my god. Okay, so when I was briefly at Interview, I got asked to  interview the new rising king of Hip Hop, otherwise known as Puffy on Puffy Coombs. This is my first interview job.

Will Bachman 30:51

Okay,

Maya Browne 30:53

He wants me to meet him at the Hit Factory, this big music studio in  Midtown, and he is recording Mary J. Blige. Nobody knew her at the time,  so like he’s telling me his story about, like, how he was in school in DC, and he would, like, hitchhike on the train. He would get on the train, but he didn’t have the fare to pay, so he’d basically run from the conductor the whole  time, like switch cars and like get around, so that he could get to New York  and work as an intern. I found that really endearing. I thought that was  really great. And then things took a turn for the weird. The interview was  kind of over, and he was like, ‘Hey, you should just like hang out, and I was  like, ‘Okay, like, I’ll hang out and listen to Mary Jay sing I was like, ‘She

sounds amazing, I want to hear what she’s doing. And he was like, ‘Yeah.  And I also want to tell you about this other thing. I like talking to you, and it’s like, ‘Okay. He’s like, ‘I want to tell you about this fantasy I have about like  being in gravity boots upside down, and like having sex with like multiple  women”, and I was like, “I gotta go home now, I gotta go home now. My  mom said I can’t talk to people like you, I got home”. Yeah, I got home now,  and oh, two years ago I got a call from an English journalist before the  whole story broke. They had found that story, and they had found me, and  they were like, “You were one of the first people to interview him. We want  to know what, what you thought of him”. And I was like, “I just thought it was really weird. They were like, “You didn’t feel threatened?” I was like, “I didn’t  feel threatened, I felt like he was ridiculous”. And they were like, “Really?” And I was like, “yeah, I just didn’t.. there was no way I was staying there,  like, what?” Yeah, I was like, “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you I was harmed, I  wasn’t harmed, I just thought it was really weird, and it was a good story.” So,

Will Bachman 32:55

wow, yeah, the recent stories in court case were not surprising to you, looks like it was a pattern of behavior.

Maya Browne 33:02

Oh no, yeah, no, no, yeah,

Will Bachman 33:06

that’s wild. There was a

Maya Browne 33:08

lot of that. Yeah,

Will Bachman 33:13

tell me about some habit that you’ve adopted over the past five or 10 years  that is really working for you?

Maya Browne 33:26

Really good question. The habit that I’ve adopted over the last five or 10  years that has worked the best for me is that every morning I meditate for  11 minutes, this started when I was doing a yoga teacher training, that’s like a whole other thing, and yeah, I have to journal, I journal before I write  about my state of mind before, and then I meditate for 11 minutes, and then I write about my state of mind afterwards,

Will Bachman 33:59

and I

Maya Browne 33:59

also think about and write about the things in my life that I’m grateful for, so

Will Bachman 34:08

what form of meditation are you, are you doing?

Maya Browne 34:12

I do pranayama breathing, where you, you kind of hold one of your nostrils,  you put your fingers, like on your third eye, like up here,

Will Bachman 34:20

okay?

Maya Browne 34:21

You breathe in like this nostril, and then you put your third finger here, and  you breathe out through that one,

Will Bachman 34:28

okay? So

Maya Browne 34:28

it makes you really concentrate on your breathing,

Will Bachman 34:31

yeah.

Maya Browne 34:31

And while I was in that teacher training, I put together a soundtrack that’s all music without lyrics, some of it’s like Segovia playing the guitar you know,  there’s like, you know, guitar or cello, like whatever, everything violin or  some piano, there’s some like weird new age stuff, but it’s just anything  without words, because if there are words that I’ll get distracted, I think it, I  was really resistant to meditation. I was super resistant to yoga. I was like,  this is a waste of time, man. Like, what? I could go for a run, why do I stand  around in this room with these like weird people? Yeah, I was really missing it, and I now I’m so grateful that, like, that I somehow went back to it,  because it’s, I think, it’s what I feel like rituals, relationships, and resources  are the things that make my life work.

Will Bachman 35:44

Say more about rituals. What other rituals do you have?

Maya Browne 35:57

Well, one of my rituals is that I really like to go sometimes, go to lunch by  myself. I take myself on, like, a field trip, where I take myself to the  museum, you know, just like alone, and you know, really just let my  thoughts kind of go.

Will Bachman 36:20

I’m getting some very strong Julia Cameron vibes right now.

Maya Browne 36:23

That’s funny.

Will Bachman 36:26

We got the Morning Journal, we got the artist date. Okay,

Maya Browne 36:30

yeah, all that. But, like, okay, so one more ridiculous story, and this is very  recent.

Will Bachman 36:37

Okay,

Maya Browne 36:38

so the Knicks, right? So the parade problem, I live pretty much exactly  where the parade was going to end, and I was like, I gotta get out of here,  no offense to the Knicks, I love the Knicks, and I’m so, so, so, so, so glad  they won, but like, my morning ritual is about like being quiet, and yeah, so I scheduled a doctor’s appointment at 92nd and fifth, and went way wait a  minute. So, afterwards I was like, oh, this might be a good time for me to go on one of my like self lunch dates,

Will Bachman 37:11

right?

Maya Browne 37:12

I realized that I had a gift certificate for Bergdorf Goodman that I’ve  probably got, I don’t know when, and I was like, oh, I should go there,  there’ll be no one there. There’ll be no one there today. So I get there, and it seems like I’m right. The hallway is totally vacant. I’m like, wow, this has  never happened. This would not.. there’s usually this.. these places are  probably packed. I don’t know. So I go up to the bar and sit down, and then  I noticed that, like, everyone at the bar is a person of color, and then I turn  around and I look at the restaurant, and I’m like, it’s the Basketball Wives,  because they’re staying at the Pierre, and one of them, Teyanna Taylor’s  mom, who I’m sitting next to by accident, is the one that brought them all

over there, and I’m like, what is going on? This is totally nuts. So I went  there to eat lunch. The guys behind the bar were so busy bringing, you  know, bottles of champagne to everyone that they couldn’t even bring any  food. I wind up sitting there with them, getting tipsy over like a five hour  period, like I can’t leave. And then I go home, so you know, yeah, that that’s  what that’s what happens when you go out and like go on adventures by  yourself in New York, sometimes

Will Bachman 38:44

things happen to things happen.

Maya Browne 38:45

I don’t know.

Will Bachman 38:47

Let’s turn to Harvard. Tell us about any courses or professors that you had  at Harvard that continue to resonate with you in some way. Wow, I would  say

Maya Browne 39:00

that the majority of the courses and professors that I had at Harvard  resonate today. I mean, even like EC 10, and, like, you know, these things  that you don’t think you’re going to love, they come into play every day, in  terms of, like, in terms of being able to understand what’s happening in the  world, and I’m so grateful that I, that I have those skills, even though I don’t  use them all the time. Simon Shama, Marty Peretz, Marty Peretz is the one who sent me on the adventure to Paris. I’m forever grateful to him, forever,  and, and Simon Shama. Also, I didn’t take his class in school, but met him  at the Pen Writing Awards ceremony when I. What’s her name? Susan Lori  Parks was being honored. He was there, and so, like, we wound up talking,  and I was like, you know, I’m really bummed that I didn’t take your class,  and just sort of got to know each other, just a cool person, you know, like,

there’s who else, um, oh, I took one class in V.E.S. that was the hardest  class I took at Harvard,

Will Bachman 40:32

which one?

Maya Browne 40:32

Oh my god, it was like an entry level um design class, it was kind of a  survey entry level design class, so we had different projects that we had to  do every week, right?

Will Bachman 40:47

Yeah,

Maya Browne 40:47

and I distinctly remember we were supposed to do something with a  rectangle, we had a rectangular like canvas, and we’re supposed to do  something with lines and dots that told a story, and so, like, I’m not the best  visual artist, to put it mildly. So I was trying to figure out, I was like, “What  the hell? I have no idea what I’m gonna do. So I kind of just put them  wherever, put them, wherever, but then I made up a story, and so at the end of the story I made up a story about why the dots were configured in this  way, and it had to do with like some of them not liking the others, and like  there was all this drama, and at the end of the story the professor said,  Okay, I say thank you, but I actually don’t know why, so I made it up to him  by bringing my violin and playing for the class, so I didn’t get an F, but yeah, pretty stupid

Will Bachman 42:02

for any listeners with kids that are in that window of looking for some  college guidance on their applications, is there a specific kind of segment  that you focus on, type like what year do people reach out to you, or are  your clients just assigned by Brownstone, or how does that work?

Maya Browne 42:24

I really appreciate the expertise that Brownstone has in terms of screening  clients. Everyone that I’ve worked has been so nice and just so cool, and I  know that that can be a really stressful time for families, so it’s really  important that, like, I have somebody who’s kind of like there, you know, just in case. So usually I start working all the people that I’ve worked with for  college application consulting, I’d start working with them in 10th grade, the  end of 10th grade, beginning of 11th grade, and the real work is well, the  real work is them getting their grades and them getting their SAT scores,  that I can’t, I can’t do for them, but the real work for me comes after the  summer after 11th grade, that’s when they write the personal statement,  and you know, I’m kind of, I’m a sounding board for them, and I think that  the most important thing, and I think this is so like I I think the most  important thing for any kid and their parents going into that process is first  of all for the kid to be driving because it’s their life and they have to be  happy at that school. The second thing is, if you want, if you, if you are a  kid, or if you’re a parent who has a child who you see as someone who has, like, the capability to go to, like, to a Harvard, to a Penn, to, like, one of  these schools, it’s just, you have to talk to your kid about that pretty early,  and talk to them about, like, every single thing that you do is, like, a step  towards this goal, right? So, not that everything has to be perfect, but just  sort of keep in mind the bigger picture, right, like it you have any clue in  ninth grade that your kid is possibly going to, like, wherever, talk to them.  Talk to them about the possibility, and what it means, and what it takes,  because it takes a lot of work, you know, and it takes sacrifice from them,  you know. You might not, some of your friends might be hanging out at the  beach all summer, or going to, like, Sardinia, or whatever they’re doing,  right, and you might be working on your college essay, but or you might be  working on your college essay while you’re doing those things, right,

Will Bachman 45:29

right, right,

Maya Browne 45:29

depending on like your level of ability to to compartmentalize and  concentrate, but like there is sacrifice involved, and this first woman that I  worked with, the first young woman that I worked with, who wound up going to Duke, you know, she’s the captain of three teams and a straight A  student and obsessed with Formula One, I was like, you like Formula One,  like, yeah, I was like, well, you need to write your essay about that, yeah. So that’s what we did. We’re like, okay, it’s all about Formula One, like, how  many, how many girls are turning in an essay about Formula One,  seriously?

Will Bachman 46:18

Right,

Maya Browne 46:18

so get to know your kid having them tell you about the things they love, the  things they want to do, and they should write their essay about something  they really are passionate about, not something that seems like the right  subject. No.

Will Bachman 46:38

Well, some of the episodes here on the show, a, I would be fairly  comfortable making a educated guess of where the person will be in five  years. Some of us have a track that is, you know, somewhat, somewhat  linear. Okay, which is fine, right? You know, that’s that’s a fine way to  approach life, but I would say, Maya, when we had you back in five years,  my guess is that it’s, it’s, you can’t, you’re is gonna be hard to predict, so it’s been really, really fun for listeners who want to keep track of you or follow  up

Maya Browne 47:29

with me. Yeah,

Will Bachman 47:30

wait, you know, meet you in the coffee shop, hand you a hand, you hand  you a script. Where, where can they find you online? What is no

Maya Browne 47:39

scripts, um friendly hellos are always welcome at Instagram. My Instagram,  which is @iammayabrowne, pretty easy brown with an e on the end. Other  places to keep track of stuff, www dot door d o o r.org that’s the Door’s  website, and yeah, those are those are kind of the.. and Facebook, you  know, we have our class of 92 page, and I find I really.. that’s the thing I like  about Facebook the most is being able to check in on classmates, it’s fun.

Will Bachman 48:19

Alright, we’ll include that link in the show notes for your Instagram. Maya,  thank you so much for joining today.

Maya Browne 48:24

Thanks, Will. Super fun.

48:26

Bye.