Ten years ago, Beth Greenspan put a poem in her wallet that she’s carried ever since. Her son was just on the verge of adolescence, and she was wistful. “I noticed that his wrists were starting to get thicker, his hands were starting to look bigger. His hand was almost the size of my own ...

It’s a cliché, but is there anyone in Hollywood more likeable than Tom Hanks? He’s had not one but many iconic roles as a truly decent person who holds up under duress, from Big to Forrest Gump, from Saving Private Ryan to Castaway. On Broadway now, Hanks is playing a different sort, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mike MacAlary. 

Bonus Track: Tom Hanks' 3 for 360

Several weeks ago we gave you a challenge: using a dozen bird songs recorded by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, we asked you to create an original musical composition on the theme of Spring. We received more than 100 compositions, ranging from classical to electronica ...

Listen to the winning remix

While classical institutions usually bemoan the aging audience, Eric Whitacre’s fanbase is squarely in a prize demographic of 18-to-30 year olds. Whitacre is the most popular choral composer working today, his music performed by school choirs, university groups, and professional ...

Bonus Track: “Oculi Omnium,” performed by the Eric Whitacre Singers

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has just finished digitizing its entire collection of 150,000 animal sounds — including its especially vast collection of bird songs. We want you to use some of those bird songs to create your own composition on the theme of Spring. We’ll choose a winner and ...

Enter: Spring Remix Challenge

Beasts of the Southern Wild is 30-year-old director Benh Zeitlin’s first feature and it’s caused a serious splash: it’s up for four Oscars this weekend, including Best Picture and Best Director. Its six-year-old star, Quevenzhané Wallis, is up for Best Actress — now nine, she’s the ...

Video: A scene from Beasts of the Southern Wild

A couple weeks ago, we asked you a question: Are we alone in the universe? We challenged you to answer in the form of an illustration, and we received more than 200 entries, includingcartoons, scientific illustrations, and abstract paintings. Julia Rothman, one of the editors ...

A saga with such color, such intrigue deserves a cocktail named after everyone in it, upstairs and downstairs: The Dowager Countess (crème de violette and lemon juice), O'Brien's Revenge (whiskey and bitters) ...

As a kid, Steve Call struggled with school. “At the end of each school year, my mother would go and beg the teacher to pass me on to the next grade,” he remembers, “because I never did learn to read in elementary school.” Call had dyslexia, and although he had ...

Tracy Letts is one of the most talented people in American theater today. His play August, Osage County, about a southern family thrown into crisis, won the Pulitzer Prize. Letts is also an acclaimed actor starring in the Broadway revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ...

As 2012 drew to a close, we asked you to declare your creative New Year’s resolution. We heard from more than 100 ambitious creatives, including aspiring novelists, composers, and a poet-turned-singer. Now that it’s 2013, it’s time to make good on those promises ...

Kiki Kienstra had a good job teaching kindergarten, a nice apartment, and a community of friends. “I didn’t have a big need for change,” she remembers. “You know, everything was fine, so why rock the boat?” One day, on a whim, she saw Finding Nemo, a Pixar movie about a clownfish ...

Last month, we gave you a challenge: married photographers Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor provided ten images for you to remix into an original composition.  We received more than 600 entries. Jerry and Maggie judged the contest and return to the show to announce the results ...

The Winner and Runners-Up

In the summer of 1939, Europe was months away from war and England was desperate for American support. Franklin Roosevelt invited the King and Queen to spend the weekend at his country house in upstate New York. The new movie Hyde Park on Hudson tells the story ...

Photographers Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor have provided ten elements for you to use to create a new image. We’ve already received hundreds of great submissions, including one from graphic artist Andrea Little of Houston incorporates all ten elements to dress up the ...

Enter Studio 360's Photo Remix Listener Challenge

We recently kicked off a new listener challenge — your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves photography. Married photographers Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor have provided ten elements for you to use to create a new image. One, from a listener named Jill ...

Enter Studio 360's Photo Remix Listener Challenge

Since the 1960s, Jerry Uelsmann has been a giant of surreal photomontage. And he still works the old-fashioned way: “I’ve had images that I’ve worked on for two or three weeks in the darkroom.” But his wife, Maggie Taylor, creates her surreal photomontage on a computer ...

Video: Manipulating Photography

Many of us in the Northeast had our routines upended by Superstorm Sandy this week. Here at Studio 360, we've been scrambling around Brooklyn — using laptops, kitchen tables, and borrowed studios to record and assemble the show. That makeshift spirit made us wonder if any listeners shut in by ...

Bonus Track: a piano composition inspired by Sandy

Political candidacies now seem to be as much about narrative as experience, with each campaign vying to control “the story” of its candidate. Lawrence O’Donnell is a former senate staffer who became a writer for The West Wing, and now hosts a political show on MSNBC. Kurt spoke with him about ...

Video: Lawrence O’Donnell vs. Taggert Romney