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Studio 360
Studio 360
Each week on PRI's "Studio 360" host Kurt Andersen and guests look at the myriad intersections between the arts, popular culture and everyday life. Current issues and trends are the jumping-off points and high-profile guests explore a broad range of provocative, diverse and entertaining cultural ideas and trends.
RECENT SHOWS
Wylie Dufresne: The Art and Science of a Delicious Meal
We visit the kitchen/laboratory of Wylie Dufresne, who flavors his cooking with a lot of chemistry and a little surrealism; he's one of the leaders of the cooking movement called "molecular gastronomy."Also, a design problem at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site: if we're going to bury radioactive waste forever, how will we remember where it is?
Creative Minds Go Green
Inventors, artists, and scientists are trying to design our way to a more sustainable environment: bacteria that will excrete fuel; an egg-shaped house of the future, mutant frogs in your backyard. Plus, Joni Mitchell on writing the reigning anthem of the environmental movement.
War, Theatre and Neuroscience
Playwright Gregory Burke, whose Black Watch, portrays the daily life of a Scottish regiment stationed in Iraq, discusses the challenges of creating theater about the Iraq War without getting too political. After Sylvia D'Arcangelo suffered a stroke and lost her ability to speak words, her son found he could communicate with her through song. We hear about her breakthrough and the scientific research that explores her condition, and what it means for neuroscience.
Election Fever Heats Up
Writer Sarah Vowell on how our leaders still crib from the Puritans. Political commentator Lawrence O'Donnell explains the power of the personal narrative even in these final days before the election. Plus, magicians and candidates' reliance on the art of patter. With the country's closer than it's ever been to a black presidency, performer Sarah Jones and linguist John McWhorter explore what it means to "sound black" in America. Finally, a conversation with Charlie Kaufman whose new movie Synecdoche opens this weekend.
Good Grief!
Charles Schulz's biographer, David Michaelis, on some surprising secrets about the creator of Peanuts. Also, the enduring influence of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Plus, a designer weighs in on changing the look of interstate highway signs.
We Can See Russia from Our House!
Kurt Andersen explores the cultural life of former Soviet and communist states, from Georgia's past as the hotbed of Soviet filmmaking, to a klezmer festival that is trying to revive Jewish culture in Poland. Russian-American author Irina Reyn tells Kurt about her new novel, What Happened to Anna K., a modern update of Anna Karenina.
Conservative Folk
After September 11, filmmaker David Zucker switched his politics from left to right. His new movie, An American Carol, is a spoof about a bunch of liberals bent on abolishing the Fourth of July. Zucker tells Kurt about being a conservative in the liberal world of Hollywood. Plus, the right side of folk music, Tift Merritt's "aha moment," and much more.
Smashing Protons and Looking Smashing
The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest particle accelerator, and when it gears up to be fully operational this summer, it will help answer questions physicists have been wrestling with since Einstein's day. Lydia Millett reads her short sci-fi story in honor of the LHC's "grand opening" and physicist Jana Levin discusses the conspiracy theories swirling around the LHC. Also, Kurt gets indispensable fashion advice from Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys New York.
Being John Malkovich
Actor John Malkovich talks about acting in his first Coen Brothers movie, Burn after Reading, indie-soul singer Theresa Andersson plays live in the studio, and a conversation with Will Wright, the creator of the new video game Spore.
Faking It
For years, literary con artist Lee Israel forged letters by late literary greats like Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward. She duped collectors and historians with her fakery and eight different typewriters. Also, design historian Steven Heller talks about his Iron Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State, describing the ingenious ways Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao used symbols, graphics, and design for propaganda and control.
From Baghdad to Broadway
Wall Street Journal reporter Melik Kaylan on his visit with the conductor of Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra. In these last five years in wartime Baghdad, the orchestra has stayed together and has never stopped performing. Also, an Iraqi singer and guitarist, now a refugee in Damascus, who carries on his obsession with American folk music and the blues. Plus, Tony-winner Patti Lupone, Broadway vet and the current star of Gypsy, who's balanced the demands of show business with raising her own family.
Randy Newman
Kurt Andersen talks music and politics with songwriter Randy Newman, who performs songs off his new record Harps & Angels and explains why he wrote "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country." Then, Kurt asks cartoonist and illustrator Kyle Baker about his new graphic historic novel, Nat Turner.
Studio 360 Goes to China
We visit the village of Songzhuang, where Communist officials drink beer with the newly rich bohemians of the country's booming international art market. Chinese-born American artists talk about "playing the Chinese card"; could the Olympics be China's Achilles heel. And Kurt talks with director Ang Lee. He was born in Taiwan, his parents from the mainland, and makes American movies --is it any suprise he's having an identity crisis? He and producer/screenwriter James Schamus talk about their movie, Lust, Caution.
Ry Cooder; Beijing Architecture
Kurt Andersen talks with singer, guitarist, and composer Ry Cooder. They talk about his new album I, Flathead, inspired by the 1960's drag racing culture and set on the desert salt flats of California. And as China positions itself on the world stage, Kurt weighs in on the architectural wonders sprouting up in Beijing.
Aspen Ideas Festival
Studio 360 heads for the Rockies with a special show recorded before a live audience at this month's Aspen Ideas Festival.
Program Details
Host
Kurt Andersen
Kurt Andersen is an author and journalist. He wrote the novel "Turn of the Century" and has contributed to Time, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Architectural Record, among other publications.
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