interview

Terms of Art: Film Composer Lingo with Carter Burwell

Carter Burwell teaches Kurt how to talk like a film composer.

Terms of Art: Film Composer Lingo with Carter Burwell

Ali Smith’s “Autumn”

Ali Smith’s “Autumn”

Best of 2016: Kurt’s Favorite Conversations

Best of 2016: Kurt’s Favorite Conversations

The Art of Hollywood Mockery

The Art of Hollywood Mockery

Hot Fuzz

Hot Fuzz

"Weird Al" Yankovic Unplugs

Al Yankovic grew up in the '60s wanting to play in rock and roll cover bands. To his surprise, the other kids just didn’t take the accordion-playing teenager seriously. 

"Weird Al" Yankovic Unplugs

Olivier Had It Wrong: Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation

What if Hamlet didn’t sound like a proper English bloke, but more like someone from the American South?

Olivier Had It Wrong: Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation

Neal Gabler on the Presidency as a Performance

How the government-entertainment-industrial complex elected Donald Trump.

Neal Gabler on the Presidency as a Performance

Canaries in the Coal Smoke

An art historian and a biologist discovered a novel way to measure historical air pollution levels: looking soot caught in the feathers of birds from 140 years ago.

Canaries in the Coal Smoke

Jacob Collier Live In-Studio

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier plays songs from his new album “In My Room” … with a little help from an MIT engineer.

Jacob Collier Live In-Studio

Now We're Cooking with Math

Mathematician Eugenia Cheng has come up with a novel way to communicate math concepts: through baking. Wouldn’t chocolate cake have made calculus more palatable?

Now We're Cooking with Math

Dreaming with Snowblink

Daniela Gesundheit and Dan Goldman, the duo behind Snowblink, introduce us to their “nondenominational, devotional pop music” and what it’s like to hear things in a visual world.

Dreaming with Snowblink

Why a 30-Year-Old Joke is Still Funny

How "Spy" magazine immortalized Donald Trump’s digits. 

Why a 30-Year-Old Joke is Still Funny

Neal Gabler on the Presidency as a Performance

When an actor named Ronald Reagan ran for president, it seemed like such a stretch. Now it’s hard to see the presidency as anything but a movie role.

Neal Gabler on the Presidency as a Performance

Lawrence O’Donnell on the Unreality of a Reality Show Candidate

The host of MSNBC’s “The Last Word” has been inside Washington and also fictionalized it as a writer for “The West Wing.” But he’d never have written a fictional candidate like Trump.

Lawrence O’Donnell on the Unreality of a Reality Show Candidate