September 14, 2006
She speaks in delicious metaphors. She's funny, self-aware and she doesn't hold back her opinions. But has singer-songwriter Tori Amos really been around long enough for a career—retrospective box set? She tells Kurt Andersen why women need to learn about mythological archetypes, and how becoming a mother has changed her.
Right-brained people are supposed to be artistic and spontaneous, while left-brainers are literal and analytical; in other words, Captain Kirk and Spock. This ubiquitous bit of pop science wisdom came out of Nobel Prize-winning neurology, and it spawned the bestseller Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. But does the story of the two brains stand up in the age of the MRI? Produced by Dave Johns.
People often depict scientists as coldly rational. Physicist Michael Salamon, who works at NASA's Universe Division, takes issue with that. He explains why Walt Whitman misunderstood the beauty of the universe, and why Maxwell's Equations are like a sexual experience. Produced by Lu Olkowski.
In southern California a Cambodian-American who goes by "praCh" surprised everyone, including his parents, when his Khmer-language hip hop tunes became hits in Cambodia. Produced by Ben Adair.
Chairs that look like DNA molecules made out of tinker-toys, corporate signs with hidden messages, and trees that diagram everything from the future of rock n' roll to the results of bad habits -- David Byrne has made them all. The former Talking Heads spends most of time on visual art now. Kurt Andersen takes a tour of Byrne's studio, and tries to stop making sense of it all.
Home renovation guru Duo Dickinson sings the praises of the invisible stuff that's all around us. Literally. Produced by Alexis Schoenberg.
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation,
DK Eyewitness Travel,
Herman Miller and
Design Within Reach. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
