Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

For listeners of Studio 360, we're featuring an episode from the new PRX podcast Monumental. The landscape of public memory is shifting. As we re-examine the plaques in our parks and the sculptures on our streets, we grapple with what to do with them. Once we learn the stories these objects tell about who we are, will tearing down statues and renaming schools be enough? Monumental interrogates the state of American monuments and what their future says about our own. In this 10-episode series, host and author Ashley C Ford and a team of audio journalists from around the country will piece together the complex stories behind some of the thousands of monuments that exist in every corner of the U.S In this episode, we uncover the story of the only successful coup d'etat ever to happen on American soil. This act of racial violence was designed to eliminate all memory of a highly successful Black community in Wilmington, North Carolina back in 1898. That suppression involved racist mobs, as well as historians, city planners, journalists and countless others. They conspired for decades to make a Black community's onetime prosperity and strength unimaginable. Almost unimaginable. For more information about Monumental, visit our website at www.prx.org/monumental

Hello Studio 360 fans! We're sharing the first episode of a new podcast project, Nixon at War, hosted by Studio 360's Kurt Andersen. Nixon at War is a seven-episode history, a fresh new kind of chronicle about how Richard Nixon turned Vietnam into a war at home… that we're still fighting today. Most accounts of the collapse of Richard Nixon's presidency begin with Watergate - the now iconic tale of a bungled break-in and the misbegotten cover-up that followed.  But what led to Watergate?  How - and more puzzlingly, why - did one of the shrewdest, most gifted political figures of his time become embroiled in so manifestly lunatic an enterprise in the first place? Intrigued by that question, novelist and historian Kurt Andersen takes a deep dive into the vast archives at the Nixon Library and emerges with an answer he wasn't expecting: While Watergate doubtless accelerated Nixon's spectacular fall, it was the Vietnam War that led inexorably to the break-in, and from there to the sinking of his presidency. At the heart of the series are hundreds of tape recordings from the time. Buried, never before heard, confidential conversations that play like dark drama. To listen to the new series, visit NixonAtWar.org, or search "Nixon at War" wherever you're listening.

After 20 years, Studio 360 is switching off the ON AIR light one last time. Alec Baldwin conducts Kurt Andersen’s exit interview and they listen to some of Kurt’s favorite moments with guests. Since it’s this show’s finale, Kurt talks with TV showrunners David Mandel and Warren Leight about the art of writing a finale — and some of their favorites to watch. And finally — for real, finally — a longtime friend of Kurt whom he met when he first interviewed her for the show, Rosanne Cash, comes back one last time to say farewell with a song. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From 1910 to 1970, 6.6 million African Americans migrated from the rural south – a dramatic movement that would permanently change the social, political and cultural fabric of our nation. In 1941, Jacob Lawerence’s iconic series The Migration of the Negro (now generally referred to as The Great Migration) rocked the art world with its depictions of an active moment very much underway. Over the course of 60 panels, the hardships of the South, the disappointments of the North, and the first steps of the Civil Rights movement are masterfully displayed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Studio 360 broadcast its first episode on November 4, 2000, just before we elected George W. Bush as President and we all learned what a “hanging chad” was. Fittingly, that first program was an exploration of art and politics hosted by a newcomer to radio, author and journalist Kurt Andersen. Originally produced out of WNYC Radio, and most recently a Slate podcast, Studio 360 looks at the cool, but complicated, and sometimes strange ways that art touches our lives. Two decades later that mission hasn’t changed even if the people making the show have come and gone. The show’s current Executive Producer Jocelyn Gonzales was a still-wet-behind-the-ears associate producer when the show debuted. As Studio 360 comes to a close after 20 years on the air, she turned to her colleagues from the earliest days of the show for their impressions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How Public Enemy brought the revolution to hip-hop with “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.” Plus, our Americans Icons segment on Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” which broke boundaries when it was published and still profoundly resonates with readers today. And Young Adult author Angie Thomas on how the late TLC performer Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes spoke to her at a very troubling point in her life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York was the original center of American moviemaking. But soon filmmakers figured out it was cheaper and simpler to work in California’s open spaces and good weather. With the westward migration, however, certain types of filmmakers were still drawn to New York. They found a home at Paramount’s “Big House,” a grand movie studio built by Adolph Zukor during the silent film heyday in Astoria, Queens. That studio still stands and now operates as Kaufman Astoria Studios. For a hundred years, Astoria has been the East Coast alternative for artists who choose to be in New York. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where do you turn when you’re heartbroken in the dead of night? Delilah, of course. Her radio call-in show pairs romantic advice with the perfect song. Plus, how Yanni, John Tesh and others discovered an improbable vehicle to ‘90s stardom: the PBS pledge drive. For our Guilty Pleasures series, the writer and “This American Life” producer Bim Adewunmi explains how the “Sweet Valley High” series is kind of preposterous and over-the-top — and completely obsessed her. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s all about the Oscars. Kurt talks with Thelma Schoonmaker, the longtime editor for Martin Scorsese who’s up for an Academy Award for “The Irishman”; Adam Driver, who’s a contender for his performance in “Marriage Story”; Quentin Tarantino, nominated for his film, “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”; and Antonio Banderas, nominated for his performance in “Pain & Glory.” Plus, the surprising story behind the man who actually posed for the sculpture that became the Oscar statue. And we meet Mark Sussman, the voiceover actor who overdubs Brad Pitt’s profane lines for the versions of his movies that run on airplanes and on television. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This Woman’s Work is a series of stories from Classic Album Sundays and Studio 360, highlighting classic albums by female artists who have made a lasting impact on music and pop culture. This time: the Grammy nominated live album “Black Gold” by singer and pianist Nina Simone. It was recorded in front of a packed audience at Philharmonic Hall in New York City on October 26, 1969 and released in 1970. “Black Gold” displays Nina Simone’s talents at interpreting a song, not to mention her range, moving from soul and gospel to show tunes and folk music. Through it all, her distinctive voice soars into moments of defiance and uplift. Political activist and scholar Angela Davis says Simone’s influence extends beyond her musical gifts. “I don't think I have ever met anyone before meeting Nina Simone who was so focused on using her talents to change the world. She wanted to use her music, use her voice, use her capacity to create new worlds.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For our latest installment of American Icons, Studio 360’s Sam Kim explores “12 Angry Men,” the courtroom drama that has inspired jurists — and Hollywood script writers — for decades. And how Kris Maddigan, a first-time video game composer, wrote a 3-hour long jazz album for the popular indie game Cuphead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He’s a jazz icon, but Wynton Marsalis has always been drawn to classical music as well. Marsalis talks with Kurt Andersen about composing symphonies and performing with orchestras. And the newest installment in our series about influential albums by women, This Woman's Work, features “Hounds of Love” by Kate Bush, with performers as varied Outkast’s Big Boi and singer Julia Holter revealing how the work inspired them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The final eight episodes of “BoJack Horseman” — Netflix’s animated series about a washed-up ’90s sitcom star living in the Hollywood Hills — will be released on January 31. Its protagonist is half-horse, half-man, and its tone is half-jokes, half-existential-angst. That’s a study in contrasts that seems inexplicable—until you talk with the show’s creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg. In 2017, he talked with host Kurt Andersen about why so many people who go to Harvard are dummies, the genius of the film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and the underappreciated poignancy of “The Simpsons.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Six decades after it premiered on Broadway, “West Side Story” is everywhere again, with a revival on Broadway and a movie in the works. But many still are troubled by the way Puerto Ricans are depicted. Plus, the story behind Garry Winogrand’s 1967 photo, "Central Park Zoo," which featured a white woman and a black man holding chimpanzees dressed in human clothes, and is one of his most widely exhibited — and controversial — images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ranky Tanky performs live in our studio, and explains to Kurt Andersen how their music is rooted in the regional Gullah culture — descendants of West African slaves who lived on isolated islands along the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas. For our Guilty Pleasures series, comic Tig Notaro says why she loves the widely loathed band Nickelback, especially their song “Photograph.” And mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, a rising star of the opera world, performs love songs directed at women that were meant to be sung by men, and tells Slate’s June Thomas how a sense of bisexual pride drives such performances. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Garry Winogrand was a master of street photography, even though he disavowed that label. He photographed across the United States, including Texas and California, but his hometown, New York City, remained his greatest inspiration. His 1967 Central Park Zoo photo, of a white woman and a black man holding chimpanzees dressed in human clothes, is one of his most widely exhibited — and controversial — images. Despite its popularity, its ultimate success as a photograph was always an open question for Winogrand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A half century later, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is still shaping our future. With no help from CGI, the movie predicted private space travel, artificial intelligence and much of Apple’s product line. It showed the promise and perils of technology and explored life’s biggest mystery: Are we alone in the universe? In Part Two of our look at the movie in our American Icons series, we visit the same IBM research lab that helped inspire HAL. We meet CIMON, a real-life AI robot on the International Space Station and Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut who blasted the “Blue Danube” in the space shuttle. Plus we speak to New York Times critic Wesley Morris, filmmakers Christopher Nolan and Tom Hanks, artist James Turrell and former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith. American Icons is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A half century later, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is still shaping our future. With no help from CGI, the movie predicted private space travel, artificial intelligence and half of Apple’s product line. It showed the promise and perils of technology and explored life’s biggest mystery: Are we alone in the universe? In Part One, we look at the movie’s origins in 1960s New York and how it went from opening night bomb to counterculture icon. We’ll hear from effects wizard Doug Trumbull, actor Keir Dullea and superfan Tom Hanks, who has seen the movie more than 200 times. American Icons is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen’s version of a Christmas story doesn’t have your typical talking snowman or mistletoe. Instead, this holiday tale involves extraterrestrial surveillance and melting polar ice caps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our latest New York Icons segment is about Midtown Manhattan’s Brill Building era, when songwriters like Carole King, Ellie Greenwich and Cynthia Weil churned out hit after hit for artists like The Shirelles, The Crystals and Little Eva. And producer Evan Chung investigates the strange story of a song from that era about a craze that was most definitely not a craze, “Mugmates.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Tennessee Williams’ classic play, “The Glass Menagerie,” Studio 360 is devoting a whole hour to the art of glass. Kurt Andersen and architect Frances Bronet tour the glass towers of Midtown Manhattan to see firsthand the architectural legacy of the Bauhaus. After Hillary Clinton failed to break the glass ceiling in 2016, artist Bunny Burson found a use for her unused victory confetti. And Philip Glass shares how he went from taxi driver to star composer overnight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For a few years in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, the heart of the music industry was an 11-story structure in midtown Manhattan: The Brill Building. There, and at the nearby 1650 Broadway, a group of very young songwriters including Carole King, Ellie Greenwich, and Cynthia Weil crafted their own take on rock and roll that was heavily influenced by their New York City setting. They churned out hit after hit for artists like The Shirelles, The Crystals, and Little Eva. But when the British Invasion hit in the mid-1960s, the Brill Building songwriters’ moment was over almost as soon as it began. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our latest American Icons feature explores Patricia Highsmith’s series that began with “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” and how Tom Ripley fits into an American tradition of protagonists struggling with identity and morality. Kurt Andersen visits perfumer Tanwi Nandini Islam as she concocts a fragrance based on Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.” And a favorite from our Guilty Pleasures series: Writer Sadie Stein on the word that so many find icky but that she really likes: “moist.” American Icons is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this Studio 360 extra, we’re sharing a podcast called “Aria Code.” Produced by WQXR and the Metropolitan Opera, it features singers and opera observers revealing the magic of a single song from an opera, followed by the aria uninterrupted. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests explore the power of hope in Puccini's tragic “Madama Butterfly,” as well as in a real-world Butterfly story. Then, you'll hear Ana María Martínez sing the complete “Un bel dì vedremo” aria onstage at the Metropolitan Opera. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with director Jennifer Reeder about her path from making short arthouse films in the 1990s to her new film, “Knives and Skin.” Producer Sam Kim has the story of erotic potboiler “Naked Came the Stranger,” which climbed The New York Times bestseller list in 1969 but, it turns out, was meant to be a parody of the very bodice-rippers it was outselling. And Richard Curtis’ 2003 movie “Love Actually” is much parodied for its cheesy gimmicks and accelerated marriage proposals, but screenwriter Oliver Butcher makes a case for why it is actually a deft work of screenwriting and direction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wynton Marsalis is a jazz icon — a renowned trumpet player and composer, he is also the music director of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. But since the very beginning, classical music has been a part of his musical makeup. Marsalis tells Kurt Andersen about how a chance encounter on a New Orleans streetcar began his love of classical music and guides us through the composition of his “Swing Symphony.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cartoonist Lynda Barry is famous for drawing the darkly funny strip “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” that appeared in alternative newsweeklies for three decades, but for the latest installment in our Guilty Pleasure series, she makes a case for why she loves perhaps the most mainstream and most mocked comic of all: “The Family Circus.” Our latest American Icon installment is about “My Ántonia” by Willa Cather, and why that novel — and author — have never really gotten their due. And Kurt Andersen talks with Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins about working on so many Coen brothers films, why he still operates the camera himself and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

West Side Story, the tragic musical about star-crossed lovers from two rival gangs, was a hit on Broadway in the 1950s and then exploded across the country when it came to the silver screen. At the time, New York City’s demographics and landscape were rapidly changing, and choreographer Jerome Robbins, composer Leonard Bernstein, author Arthur Laurents, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim wanted an updated Romeo and Juliet that wrestled with what that meant. Who could belong in this new America? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Studio 360’s American Icon series has explored dozens of influential works of art and entertainment that have shaped who we are as Americans. Now we turn to our hometown of New York for a new batch of Icons stories about works of art that were born in the city and impacted the lives of people everywhere. This hour: the 1963 book “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, and the 1978 salsa album “Siembra” by Ruben Blades and Willie Colón. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The childlike, cartoonish typeface Comic Sans is the most hated font in the world. Twenty-five years after its release, it's become notorious for showing up in seemingly inappropriate contexts, from office memos to newspapers and government documents. But librarian and technology educator Jessamyn West argues that hating on Comic Sans is elitist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with the choreographer Mark Morris about how music has always been central to his work. The author Carmen Maria Machado reveals how an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” had the unlikely effect of helping her write her new book about domestic abuse. And how the cartoon "Rocky and Bullwinkle" was strangely prescient about the Cold War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton is a rising opera star, performing on some of the world’s most venerable classical music stages. In concert halls from London to New York, Barton not only flaunts her velvety rich tone, but also her commitment to social justice as an openly queer performer. Now, Barton and pianist Kathleen Kelly have put together a recital program that celebrates women, currently on tour. The pair perform three songs from the feminist recital tour live in Studio 360. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are so familiar they’ve become part of our cultural wallpaper. A raven croaking “nevermore?” An enemy bricked up in a cellar? A heart beating under the floorboards? These images are the stuff of our collective nightmares, but Poe dreamed them all up first. For better and worse, Poe’s themes and obsessions continue to crop up throughout pop culture. He showed us the dark side of the American dream, and that’s something we can’t unsee. American Icons is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bell Jar is often read as a sort of literary suicide note by poet Sylvia Plath. The autobiographical novel memorably follows her first attempt at taking her own life and her experiences living in a mental institution and undergoing electroshock therapy, but its accounts of weeks spent in New York City preceding the breakdown provide a captivating picture, not just of Plath’s mental state, but of the impossible demands made of women in 1950s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Amy Sherald, who painted the official Michelle Obama portrait, about her strict religious upbringing, the surreal experience of interviewing with the Obamas and why she’ll only ever paint African Americans. Our latest American Icons feature: “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians, and how the band of Mexican American teens managed to top the charts and help fuel the growing Latin influence on pop music in the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charleston band Ranky Tanky draws on the musical traditions of the Gullah culture from the Lowcountry region of the Southeastern U.S. They perform live in Studio 360 and then break the music down into its essential components, explaining what exactly makes this “Gullah” and how that cultural heritage has informed American jazz.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two highlights from our American Icons special series. First, producer Arun Venugopal revisits “The Searchers,” the John Ford film starring John Wayne that is widely regarded as a masterpiece, but which many see as racially problematic in the way that Wayne’s character pursues revenge against the Comanche who killed his family in a raid. Then, producer June Thomas on the unlikely history of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” the movie that flopped in theaters when it was released in 1975, only to become an interactive movie experience where audiences shouted back at the screen, brandished water pistols and delighted in the film’s risqué raucousness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This Woman’s Work is a series of stories from Classic Album Sundays and Studio 360 highlighting classic albums by female artists who have made a lasting impact on music and pop culture. This time we’re looking at the artist who inspired the name of this series: the singer-songwriter, dancer and producer Kate Bush. With its sophisticated arrangements and embrace of technology, her self-produced 1985 album “Hounds of Love” pushed the boundaries of musical structure and personal expression. Classic Albums host Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy discusses Kate Bush's “Hounds of Love” with singer Julia Holter and Outkast’s Big Boi.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our latest Americans Icons segment is about “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Maya Angelou’s first book broke boundaries when it was published 50 years ago and still profoundly resonates with readers today. And Kurt Andersen talks with Liz Phair, the trailblazing indie rocker who’s just published a memoir. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Anderson talks with Antonio Banderas about “Pain and Glory,” where he plays his longtime friend and collaborator –– and the director of this same movie –– Pedro Almodóvar. With the opening of “Joker,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, Kurt talks with Rick Baker, the celebrated makeup artist, about how Hollywood has clowned around with the character over the decades. This week marks 50 years since the release of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” a remarkable pop song recorded when Michael Jackson was so young that, in the wake of the latest allegations of molestation against him, even some people who stopped listening to his solo work still enjoy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Byrne’s stage show “American Utopia” is heading to Broadway in October. The show will feature songs from his latest album of the same name, as well as some older works from his former band, Talking Heads. This month also marks the 35th anniversary of “Stop Making Sense,” the brilliant Talking Heads’ concert film, made by Jonathan Demme. Kurt Andersen spoke with David Byrne in 2012 about the group’s early years. In an era of punk decadence, Talking Heads created a pop revolution by combining tight, funk-based rhythms, a clean-cut image, and themes of anxiety and social isolation. Kurt brings up the early song “I’m Not in Love,” in which Byrne wonders, “Do people really fall in love?” “I was just asking all the most super-obvious questions,” explains Byrne, who has said that he may have had Asperger’s syndrome as a young person. “Why do humans, people, we do these things? And how does it work?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conceptual artist Fred Wilson has spent much of his career examining how museum collections are chosen and exhibited, so Kurt Andersen meets Wilson at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a chat and a tour. With this year marking the centennial of the birth of Uta Hagen, the actress who also became a revered acting teacher, we hear from her students and colleagues, including F. Murray Abraham, Mercedes Ruehl and David Hyde Pierce. Plus, the story behind the song known as "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices