March 30, 2007
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.
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 with American race politics
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 Olkowski attended a special LVHRD challenge: two teams of landscape architects going head to head, designing in cheese.
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.
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 same time. Produced by Trey Kay.
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, and
DK Eyewitness Travel. 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. 
