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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From Soup to Nuts

Part Six

Once upon a time, there was a chef who made the greatest cakes in the world. His name was Antonin Careme. But this is no fairy tale. It’s a true story of a man called the King of the Cooks. In this hour of To the Best...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The legendary movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn once said, you should never predict anything, especially the future.  But it’s human nature to go to extremes for a sneak peak of what lies around the corner.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, an astrophysicist sheds some light on...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Say you’re in Vegas playing high-stakes poker.  You haven’t slept in days.  To make matters worse, you’re being stared down by two of the best poker players in the world.  And...you’re bluffing.  So, you bet it all to bring the pot to well over a million dollars.  In this hour of To the Best of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Lynne Truss created a sensation in Britain with a book whose title is a punch line: it’s a punctuation joke that says a panda is a black and white mammal and it “Eats, Shoots and Leaves.”  Rules for punctuation and a good life, in this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Supersized slabs of juicy ribs cooked over a wood fire until the meat slides right off the bone. Food doesn't get more American than barbecue. It's part of our roots. And it's tangled up in our racial history. In this hour, we celebrate barbecue and explore its secret history.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The downhill skiers in Sochi know cold weather, but for real cold -- try diving into freezing water above the Arctic Circle!  In this hour, some sports too cold even for the Winter Olympics.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Democracy is one of those rubbery words. We kind of know what it means. But do we really? It’s voting and elections, but it’s much, much more than that. Democracy has inspired The Velvet Revolution and the Arab Spring.  It encouraged the Suffragists and the Civil Rights Movement. It stirred the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Linus has his security blanket.  Renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks had the Periodic Table of the Elements.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, My Chemical Life.  Oliver Sacks remembers a childhood steeped in chemistry.  Also, Primo Levi survives Auschwitz, through chemistry.  And,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Japan has a “slow life” movement.  Italy has a “slow cities” movement.  Spain has a network of siesta salons.  And Americans?  10 to 15 million of us now meditate or do yoga.  Is it possible the world is finally ready to slow down?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge a look at the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

According to a "New York Times" poll he's the third most famous person in Japan, right behind Hirohito and Bruce Lee. But the truth is he's not even a person, he's a giant green, radioactive lizard named Godzilla. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll explore the history of...Read more

I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the University reaches every family of the state. UW President Charles Van Hise in 1905

If you live in Wisconsin, chances are you've heard of the Wisconsin Idea. It's the century-old dream of sharing the best of higher education with the entire state -- bringing the values of the liberal arts, scientific knowledge and search for truth to everyone. It's a cherished tradition,...Read more

a muse

How does creative work get done? When the answer finally comes to a question that's dogged you for weeks or years, where is it coming from?

 

In this special hour, Nathan Englander - acclaimed novelist, short story writer, playwright - is our guest...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When Charles Mingus died, his widow took his ashes to India and scattered them in the Ganges.  But that wasn’t the end.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Sue Mingus talks about the legacy of her late husband’s music: his spirituality, his anger, and his love.  Also, a conversation...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

A car accident at twenty-one left John Callahan paralyzed.  He’s become a very successful cartoonist -- poking fun at disabilities and the idiosyncrasies of life.    His work has been described as “rude, shocking, tasteless, and depraved” – by his fans.  Next time on To...Read more

film junkies stare at screens

It’s Oscar season and Hollywood is once again celebrating the best films of the year. It would seem that we're a nation obsessed with movies. As a country, we spend billions of dollars to watch them every year, and celebrate them with a variety of awards ceremonies. But what separates a...Read more

book

We love books. We line them on shelves like totems. We pile them next to our beds in some hope they'll affect our dreams.  For many of us, books are sacred objects. And sometimes, just sometimes, they’re even magical.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

After World War Two, existentialism was all the rage in the U.S.A.  College students rebelled by smoking European cigarettes and wearing black clothes and berets.  Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus felt that Americans were too self-confident and superficial to accept this dark, brooding...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Patty Loveless is a coal miner’s daughter.  And a country singer, just like her distant cousin Loretta Lynn.  When Patty Loveless’ father contracted black lung disease the family had to move to Louisville, Kentucky – so Patty’s dad could receive medical attention.  In this hour of To the Best of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Andre Agassi says he always hated tennis, even though it's what made him rich and famous. But maybe that's not surprising, considering how his father used to browbeat him into hitting 2500 balls a day when he was seven years old, and later sent him off to a tennis academy, which Agassi calls a "...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Listen to the experts and they’ll tell you the suburbs are boring, stifling places to live, full of bad architecture.  Well, more than half of all Americans now live in suburbia.  Can so many people be wrong?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a defense of suburbs.  Also, playwright...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Canal Street flooded with so much water it looks like an actual canal.  People mourning the loss of their homes and loved ones.  The Gulf Coast will never be the same after the devastation that Hurricane Katrina has caused.  In this hour of the Peabody-Award-Winning program To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

All the world's a stage! The Play's the thing. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Hardly a day goes by when the words that flowed so easily from Will Shakespeare's pen don't meet and greet us in the modern world. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, sweet William makes his way to the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Henry David Thoreau died 150 years ago, and he’s still a great American icon.  But have you ever wondered exactly why?  Thoreau wasn’t exactly the model environmentalist he’s often made out to be.  And his account of living at Walden Pond is partly fictionalized; he spent nine years writing and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

New Orleans is famous for a lot of things...many of them musical. It's the birthplace of jazz, the cradle of rhythm and blues.  The home of the brass bands.  So it's no wonder that New Orleans is known as "the City that Care Forgot."  In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

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