The Organist
Take a weird, thoughtful and pleasurable journey into literature, music, art, philosophy, the internet, language, and history with McSweeney's and KCRW. This unconventional arts-and-culture magazine features contributors and guests like Miranda July, George Saunders, Lena Dunham, Tig Notaro, and Sarah Silverman.
The New World Where do speech balloons come from? How does time move from panel to panel? This week we explore the techniques of comic-book storytelling through Chris Reynolds’s graphic series, newly anthologized as The New World. Join us as we travel deep into the artist’s world to find the source of these bizarrely mundane comics’ depth and beauty.
Low Fidelity What sounds don’t we hear when we listen? What sounds are discarded in digital processing, whether it’s through hearing aids or mp3s? This week we travel to Scottish lighthouses, professional sound-testing facilities, and animal slaughterhouses to find out. Our guests include animal scientist and autism advocate Temple Grandin and journalist Bella Bathurst, who regained her hearing after twelve years of deafness.
The Blindfold Challenge In his audio diaries recorded while driving cross-country, artist David Wojnarowicz tries to describe how he feels after being diagnosed with AIDS. Writer Sandy Allen translates the autobiography of their schizophrenic uncle, presenting his hallucinations as facts. In the “Blindfold Challenge,” sighted people perform daily tasks while unable to see. Can art—or anything—help us understand a life different from our own?
Bingeing Texas The national news media is mesmerized by a president who runs the White House like a reality show. Jen Rice takes a look at the weird relationship between political actors and public audience. In her recap of the 85th Texas legislative session, she explores the blow-out fights and cliffhangers that reality TV has made famous. What can Texas’s politics tell us about the current state of the U.S.?
Borderlands This week, two stories from the U.S. borders. The first, from Javier Zamora, who crossed into the U.S. without his parents when he was nine years old. The other comes from our border with Canada, which Porter Fox navigated from end to end, by canoe, freighter, and rental car, encountering an increasingly policed border, Native American uprisings, and the unmistakable impact of climate change.
Two Years With Franz The poet and Pulitzer Prize–winner Franz Wright recorded 546 audio tapes in the two years of his life after a terminal cancer diagnosis. The tapes show incredible vitality in the face of death. Over two years, Bianca Giaever listened to all 546 tapes, emerging with this hour-long story of poetry and mental illness and love.