June 26, 2009 (Show #1026)
Forty years after Stonewall, where is gay culture today? The design firm Worldstudio rethinks the rainbow flag. Gay rappers struggle for acceptance in the LGBT and hip-hop worlds. A decade after "Will and Grace," where are the non-sidekick gay characters on TV? And later, singer-songwriter Regina Spektor performs songs from her new album, Far.
June 25, 2009 (Show #)
Design firm Worldstudio presents their 21st century take on the Gay Pride flag. And Kurt Andersen and Isaac Mizrahi reveal the winner of our listener challenge.
June 19, 2009 (Show #1025)
Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro can't shake his love for vampires, monsters, and witches. Warlords find a way to influence Afghanistan's televised pop-music competition, "Afghan Star." And Tony-winner Alice Ripley, of Broadway's "Next to Normal," the musical about bipolar disorder, performs.
June 12, 2009 (Show #1024)
David Bowie's son, filmmaker Duncan Jones, has a new sci-fi movie out, "Moon," that would make Ziggy Stardust proud. Elizabeth Strout, winner of the Pulitzer for her book of short stories "Olive Kitteridge," stops by. And we’ll follow the stimulus money to a shovel-ready public project in Rochester, NY called ARTWalk.
June 05, 2009 (Show #1023)
With Tony awards upon us, we check in on some of Broadway's best. A revival of August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" is up for six Tonys, but has caused controversy with the choice of a white director. Wilson’s widow says that critics have misunderstood Wilson’s position. Kurt Andersen talks with Geoffrey Rush, nominated for his role in "Exit the King." And later, "Spiderman" director Sam Raimi talks about his new horror movie, "Drag Me to Hell."
May 29, 2009 (Show #1022)
People with something to prove. Author Harlan Ellison makes the case that he's heir to Poe, Kafka, and Borges. We visit indie rocker Thao Nguyen in her mother's laundromat. Miranda July reads her short story, "This Person." And hear why a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece failed to start a revolution.
May 22, 2009 (Show #1021)
Superfans unite. Kurt Andersen speaks with a linguist who makes the case for non-Trekkies to learn Klingon. Singer-songwriter Jill Sobule gets her fans to finance the making of her record. Plus, a sneak preview of 3-D movies Hollywood won't let you see.
May 15, 2009 (Show #1020)
Kurt Andersen talks with Lynn Nottage, the playwright behind the Pulitzer prize-winning play, "Ruined." Arts critics are forced to get resourceful when their old funding sources dry up. And out in the Mojave Desert, 82-year-old Gene Winfield designs the cars of the future.
May 08, 2009 (Show #1019)
Writer Ben Greenman and soul legend Swamp Dogg tell Kurt Andersen about their unlikely collaboration. The music of tiny Botswana makes it out into the world, thanks to the TV series "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency." And Canadian band Bell Orchestre leaves its indie-rock roots behind and perform live in the studio.
May 01, 2009 (Show #1018)
Folk music gets a makeover in Mexico and Mali. Meet Bostich and Fussible of Tijuana's Nortec Collective. The kora master from Mali, Toumani Diabate, performs live in the studio. And an artist takes fragments of the Iraq war on a road trip across the U.S.
April 24, 2009 (Show #1017)
Jump-starting the American car. Kurt takes a tour through L.A.'s car culture, talking to hot rodders and low riders and emerging designers who just might be able to rescue the U.S. auto industry. A new play in Charlotte, NC looks back at a nasty culture war from 1996. And two cult favorites from Cleveland: horror movie host Ghoulardi and the rock band Pere Ubu.
April 17, 2009 (Show #1016)
Kurt Andersen gets a cello lesson. Ben Hong taught Jamie Foxx how to play for the new film "The Soloist," and now takes on Kurt as a student. West Side Story is back on Broadway and en español! Neuroscientists wrap their brains around magic. And the rabid fan base of Sufjan Stevens gets ugly with the winner of a songwriting contest.
April 10, 2009 (Show #1015)
Kurt visits the kitchen of Wylie Dufresne, who owns the adventurous New York restaurant WD-50. Dufresne believes that organic ingredients and fine food are not incompatible with the kind of chemicals we might see on a package of Twinkies. We'll follow the creation of a single dish – Eggs Benedict – from the chicken farm to the taste test. Plus, the indie-soul sound of Theresa Andersson, who recorded her latest record in her home kitchen in New Orleans.
April 03, 2009 (Show #1014)
Meet Mr. Jalopy. He transforms garage sale junk into extraordinary machines. Hear how the quirky 80s new wave band Devo started out political. Filmmaker Paul H-O tells Kurt about his life in the shadow of art star photographer Cindy Sherman. After layoffs, former music executives reinvent themselves. And an artist offers free therapy sessions in a museum gallery.
March 27, 2009 (Show #1013)
Two men pull off one of the biggest art thefts in history, and crime writer Ulrich Boser thinks he's nailed them. Sci-fi meets soul in the music of Janelle Monáe. Designers respond to the recession. Plus, a visit with the piano doctor of Malibu, who's also Kurt's brother.
March 20, 2009 (Show #1012)
Meet the recession's new creative class. The finance industry laid them off, but now they're full-time artists. William Cohan's account of Bear Stearns' demise, House of Cards, tells us a lot about this tough time. "Flower," a popular new videogame, just says no to guns. And deep in the Virginia woods, we go deer hunting with a poet.
March 13, 2009 (Show #1011)
South African art rock lands in the States, and we get our own live performance from BLK JKS. Kurt Andersen takes a walk through "Tehran-geles" - the Iranian neighborhood of Los Angeles - with singer Mamak Khadem. And how do you the raise $300 million needed to clean up the lead-poisoned soil of New Orleans? The artist Mel Chin decided to literally make it. It's not counterfeit - it's art.
March 06, 2009 (Show #1010)
Comic book superheroes and a gun-toting grandma. Find out why audiences are going nuts for two very different new movies- "Watchmen" and "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail." In a new work of historical fiction, female slaves lead a rebellion on a Jamaican sugar plantation; Kurt talks with Marlon James, the author of The Book of Night Women. And discover what it takes to rescue a 450-year-old painting.
February 27, 2009 (Show #1009)
Old is the new young. At a home for retired actors, residents keep up their talents. Composer Elliot Carter turns 100. And Kurt Andersen seeks wisdom from his very first boss, the film critic Gene Shalit. Plus, music and stories from songwriter Ruthie Foster and Somali-born rapper K'naan.
February 20, 2009 (Show #1008)
Meet the Oscar nominees behind the movies Wall-E, the Class, and Man on Wire. The in-coming conductor of the LA Philharmonic finds his base, in the students of the Los Angeles public schools. Plus, singer Ben Kweller performs.
February 13, 2009 (Show #1007)
Hold the chocolates and roses. Eleni Mandell's love songs skew way more bitter than sweet. Listeners share their haiku on the failing economy. And after decades of drastic haircuts and career changes, the Barbie doll turns fifty.
February 06, 2009 (Show #1006)
Studio 360 is big in Japan. Kurt Andersen hits the streets of Tokyo in search of cutting-edge art and design. Female art stars take on the schoolgirl stereotype; young rebels scream against an economic system that failed them. And Kurt goes undercover at the epicenter of all things nerdy to get a taste of otaku culture.
February 04, 2009 (Show #)
It's that golden time again, and Studio 360 is proud to look back on a year of interviews with some of the top Oscar contenders. Hear the personal story behind an animated war documentary, a high wire walk between the Twin Towers, and the secret sounds of R2D2 and WALL-E. Check out this week's show for yet another Oscar story: "The Class." It's nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, and we hear from director Laurent Cantet about his months of preparation - in a Parisian high school.
January 30, 2009 (Show #1005)
Hedge fund poetry and the secrets of old Japan. Find out how a job in the complicated world of high finance inspired the poet Katy Lederer. Despite 20 years of living in Japan, writer Pico Iyer embraces his outsider status there. The ancient Japanese tea ceremony finds a place in the modern world. And hear the haunting story behind a Japanese forest that attracts those seeking to end their lives.
January 23, 2009 (Show #1004)
Actors, poets, and artists defy convention. Indie actor Liev Schrieber wields a machine gun in his new movie, "Defiance." A new poetry movement bubbles up from the internet, but it's not all sunshine and moonbeams. When a multimedia artist discovered the government was tracking him, he decided to one-up the feds and track himself. Plus a conversation with saxophonist Joshua Redman.
January 16, 2009 (Show #1003)
To mark the Inauguration we asked poets, actors, and musicians to leave voicemails for the new president. Artists who turned Obama into an icon during the campaign, find themselves in a quandary. And Kurt has an exit interview with departing NEA chairman Dana Gioia. Plus, all of New York City fits into a single room in Queens.
January 09, 2009 (Show #1002)
Kurt Andersen explores how the Lincoln Memorial became America's soapbox, and how our yearning to connect with Lincoln speaks to the better angels of our nature; with Sarah Vowell, David Strathairn, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Doris Kearns Goodwin.
January 02, 2009 (Show #1001)
This week in Studio 360, multiple personalities. In a program recorded last July at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Tony Award-winning performer Sarah Jones joins Kurt Andersen on stage, and transforms herself into a dizzying range of characters – from a Jewish grandmother to a teenaged rapper. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, who developed the theory of multiple intelligences, gives some free analysis to audience members who tell us about big decisions. And country rocker Steve Earle sings about leaving Tennessee, performing tracks from his new record "Washington Square Serenade."
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. 
