COVER STORY
Airports
This week in Studio 360, Kurt Andersen and the writer Pico Iyer check in at the curb and explore the allure of airports, from mariachi bands in Baltimore to motel views in LA.

The Adventurer
Photographer Zoe Crosher grew up around planes and airports -- her mother was a flight attendant, and her father was a diplomat. So it isn’t surprising that when Crosher moved to Los Angeles, she gravitated towards the neighborhoods surrounding Los Angeles International Airport. She found what she considered the real spirit of L.A. in little airport motels with names like The Adventurer. KCRW’s Matt Holzman took a tour with the photographer to the sites of her most intriguing images.
Go to a webpage of Zoe Crosher’s work currently in a New York gallery
Go to a webpage of Zoe Crosher’s work in a California gallery

Send in the Clowns
No period was shakier for airports than the weeks following September 11th. At Baltimore’s BWI airport things got really out of control. Washington National was shut down, and lines stretched through the Baltimore’s terminal with hundreds of stressed out, anxious, re-routed passengers. So the Baltimore airport administrators tried an experiment: they literally sent in the clowns. Mariachi bands, jugglers, Flamenco dancers and a Groucho Marx impersonator roamed the terminals easing the passengers’ worries and even giving them advice. Produced by Gregory Warner.

One Zero Charlie
Michael Stanard has been living a kind of double life. He runs a graphic design firm and a small airport –- both on the same airstrip in rural Illinois. Hal Humphreys visited the designer/aviation enthusiast at One Zero Charlie to find out how Stanard juggles his two passions.
Go to the One Zero Charlie website

SPECIAL GUEST
Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer is one of the most compelling authors on travel and global cultures. He edited the 2004 Best American Travel Writing, and his books include Video Night in Kathmandu, Abandon, and Sun After Dark: Flights into the Foreign. Kurt Andersen talks to Pico Iyer about airports from Hong Kong to Los Angeles to Easter Island.
Buy Sun After Dark: Flight into the Foreign by Pico Iyer here
Buy The Global Soul by Pico Iyer here
Video Night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer here
Buy Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno here

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Amusia
When surrounded by harmonious caroling during the holiday season, do you ever secretly wonder whether you're tone deaf? You can take heart, because true tone deafness, otherwise known as “congenital amusia,” is actually quite rare.  Jeff Lunden talked with scientists trying to unlock the mystery of this discordant condition.

Commentary
Remembering Susan Sontag
Kurt Andersen remembers the awe and pleasure he felt interviewing the great essayist and critic Susan Sontag in early 2003, during the build-up to the Iraq war. She died this week at the age of 71.
Read text of Kurt's commentary here

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