October 31, 2008
In 2004, a regiment of Scottish soldiers known as Black Watch was sent to fight in the Iraq War. They were deployed to a region that has come to be known as the “Triangle of Death.” Gregory Burke based his play Black Watch (now up at St. Ann's Warehouse in New York) on conversations with real soldiers who returned from the war. Kurt talks with Burke about this moving, complicated portrait of army life.
The Detroit Institute of Arts wanted visitors to feel more connected to what they were seeing behind the glass cases. So they decided to renovate, redesign, and re-think how people experience art museums. A year ago, it re-opened its doors, so we sent Zak Rosen to discover how the D.I.A. remade itself for the 21st century.
There's one guide museum-goers in Philadelphia should not be without: Travels With Dick And Bill. It’s a self-published packet of stapled Xeroxed pages, and a huge endeavor. Dick Hughes and Bill McLaughlin, both 85, have visited 203 museums in and around Philadelphia, and they reviewed every single one. Produced by Peter Crimmins.
Comic book author-illustrator Jessica Abel has a gift for depicting paralyzing awkwardness. She works from experience: a punk-rock teenager, Abel went to college in a Midwestern town and found herself an outsider in a sea of blue jeans and sweatshirts. Then she went to the local comic book store. Produced by Catherine Epstein.
Weigh in: Has a work of art changed your life?
Roy Blount Jr. has written at least twenty books and dozens of essays, so his lifetime word count is surely in the millions. His latest book is Alphabet Juice, a kind of shaggy encyclopedia of how words actually convey their meanings through sound.
What's your word?: Submit original terms for Roy Blount Jr.'s definitions
A recent study of stroke victims with damaged language abilities found that those who listened to music recovered better than those who listened only to audio books. Music plus words trumped words alone. Studio 360’s Gideon D’Arcangelo has witnessed this phenomenon first hand–with his mother Sylvia.
(Special thanks to Bob Huott.)
Gideon and Sylvia D'Arcangelo sing the song by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh.
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, and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation. 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. 
