Kurt Andersen talks to Howard Jacobson about his new darkly comic novel Kalooki Nights. Jacobson, also a columnist for the London daily The Independent, says the novel is not unlike his own childhood, growing up Jewish in a postwar British suburb.

Hear Howard Jacobson read from Kalooki Nights.

It wasn't long ago that minstrel shows featuring white actors in blackface were all the rage in America. They were hokey, slapdash, and completely offensive -- but some of them were based on the greatest plays in the English language. Richard Paul examines how Shakespeare's plays collided ...

Kurt talks with law professor Kenji Yoshino, author of Covering: The Hidden Assault On Our Civil Rights, about how we "minstrelize" groups of people, and distort our identities to fit in -- even if it's just concealing a tattoo.

A creative community called LVHRD, pronounced "live hard," hosts Iron Chef-like contests for creative professionals.Lu Olkowskiattended a special LVHRD challenge: two teams of landscape architects going head to head, designing in cheese.

Aerial photographer David Maisel shoots environmental messes -- like cyanide leaching fields and dried-out lakes. But his color prints are big, gorgeous, and mysterious. Maisel talks about his pictures of Los Angeles, just published in the book Oblivion, and how he seduces and betrays viewers at the ...

Trombonist J. Walter Hawkes, who now plays with Norah Jones, almost quit music. He was going to pursue a more regular-guy path in computer programming. But then a horrible accident changed his life path. Produced by Lu Olkowski.