Arts and Culture

David Foster Wallace

His writing explodes with manic, high-octane verbal energy, and he wrote about everything under the sun. Verbal pyrotechnics aside,Salon book critic Laura Miller says David Foster Wallace was the most important writer of his time because he was obsessed with the question of how to live authentically in a media-saturated culture of hype. More

brain light

Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist says most neuroscientists have downplayed the differences between the left and right sides of the brain. He says he thinks the left hemisphere has become so dominant in Western culture that we're losing the sense of what makes us human.More

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Helen Macdonald's book "H is for Hawk" turned her goshawk Mabel into one of the most memorable literary characters of recent years. Mabel is no longer with her, but Helen tells Anne Strainchamps about her new avian companion - an ornery and very smart parrot.More

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Shattered by her father's sudden death, writer Helen Macdonald began dreaming of wild hawks.  In an effort to move beyond her grief, she bought and trained a wild goshawk -- one of the world's fiercest birds of prey.   But between the bird and her grief, she became, in her words "more hawk than human."More

Joey Skaggs is a master of the hoax. His elaborate pranks have been fooling media outlets since the 1960s.More

mellotron

Dianna Dilworth is a filmmaker and journalist. Her latest documentary is called "Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie."More

Stephen Burn recommends David Foster Wallace's critically-acclaimed novel, "Infinite Jest." The book was published 20 years ago, on February 1st, 1996.More

Eugene Thacker talks to Anne Strainchamps about his book, "In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy, Volume 1."More

Journalist DT Max tells Steve Paulson about David Foster Wallace's creative struggles with the novel he left unfinished when he committed suicide in September of 2008. It's called "The Pale King" and explores Wallace's longtime preoccupation with boredom.More

Thing 1 and Thing 2 mural

Brian Boyd talks with Anne Strainchamps about how our love of storytelling helped us evolve.More

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Edward Wohl tells us about the death of his father in 1999.More

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The celebrated cartoonist Chris Ware has a graphic novel called “Building Stories.”  It is full of stories. It is an actual building. Steve Paulson says, “it’s like nothing he’s even seen or read before.”More

BookMarks

Eric Liu reviewing “Inventing America” by Gary Wills.More

David Byrne

David Byrne is one of those artists who just keeps reinventing himself -- first as frontman of Talking Heads. Then by making films and writing books. Lately, he's been making historical musicals -- one about Joan of Arc and one about Imelda Marcos.  He's just released an updated version of his book, "How Music Works," which includes a new chapter called "Infinite Choice: The Power of Curation."More

David Foster Wallace in 2006

David Lipsky is the journalist portrayed in “The End of the Tour,” a film about Lipsky's 5-day road trip with David Foster Wallace.  The two hit it off, sharing a wide-ranging conversation about fame, depression, pop culture and junk food. Speaking to Jim Fleming for "To The Best of Our Knowledge" in 2009, Lipsky remembers Wallace and traces the evolution of the depression that ultimately claimed his life.More

David Foster Wallace

TIME magazine's book critic calls David Foster Wallace a literary ventriloquist who captured the spoken speech of Americans more accurately, hilariously and lovingly than any other writer. More

Why is filmmaker Errol Morris is still outraged by the famous philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn?More

man playing guitar

Famous for his stories of people with brain disorders, Oliver Sacks wrote a lot about neurological mysteries, like the way a song can activate parts of the brain that language can’t even touch.More

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