COVER STORY
Death
This week in Studio 360, Kurt Andersen and poet and undertaker Thomas Lynch talk about artists, writers, and moviemakers who deal with the dead.

Our Town
Compton, California carries a reputation for gangs, gangsta rap and violence, but a few years ago, a high school there staged a production of Our Town, Thornton Wilder’s play set in a New England village in 1904. It’s a drama-class chestnut that people tend to think of as sweet old-fashioned Americana, even though the entire third act is told from the perspective of the dead. Eric Molinsky has the story of the students in Compton who discovered that Our Town was their town.
Go to the Netflix page for OT: Our Town
Listen to an interview on WNYC with Catherine Borek and Scott Hamilton Kennedy

Disney & Death
For many children, Disney movies are their first introduction to death, from Bambi’s mother to Old Yeller. Jake Warga remembers the shots heard throughout his childhood.

Morgue Photographer
Artist Thomas Condon got permission from officials in Cincinnati to take pictures of corpses at the morgue for a personal project. In the town still shaken by the Robert Mapplethorpe controversy ten years ago, Condon found himself on trial and eventually in jail. Tamar Brott reports.
Listen to continuation of interview regarding Thomas Condon
Visit the website of the artist and filmmaking team, Paul Lamarre and Melissa Wolf, producing a documentary that includes Thomas Condon’s story of imprisonment

SPECIAL GUEST
Thomas Lynch
Thomas Lynch lives the real Six Feet Under. A poet and a professor of creative writing at the University of Michigan, Lynch runs his family’s funeral home in Milford, Michigan. He's written several volumes of poetry and his collections of essays include The Undertaking, for which he was a National Book Award finalist, and Bodies in Motion and at Rest, which explores the relationship between the literary and mortuary arts.

Audio Help
To listen to audio from this site, you will need RealPlayer.
Go to instructions for downloading

Design for the Real World
Why does it feel so good to tie a scarf around your neck? Are you just keeping warm – or are you tying a knot between your head and your heart? Veronique Vienne extolls the simple scarf and instructs us on how to tie one right. Produced by Michele Siegel.

Commentary
After the National Book Award finalists were announced this week, Kurt Andersen wondered whether obscurity really signifies artistic virtue.
Read the full text

Download this show from