Andrew Woodcock and Chris Strong are meteorologists and moonlight as a band. They tell Anne Strainchamps how the weather finds its way into their lyrics.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Want a shot of inspiration? You'll find it at a great high school theater production. Michael Sokolove tells the story of Lou Volpe, a legendary drama coach in Levittown, PA.
Lars Svendsen talks about his book, "A Philosophy of Boredom."
Not all architecture in the Arab world glitters like a golden dome. Some are being shelled to dust by war. Such is the horrifying story of Homs, Syria. Once a cosmopolitan and tolerant city of more than one million, Homs has hosted clashes between rebel groups and President Bashar Assad’s forces since 2011. Those clashes have mortared and shelled the city into an oblivion. Thousands of residents have been killed. Most of the remaining have fled. But not all.
Marwa al-Sabouni and her family have stayed. Marwa al-Sabouni has her PhD. in Islamic architecture and wrote a compelling memoir about architecture and destruction in Homs called “The Battle for Home.”
Marwa al-Sabouni spoke with Anne Strainchamps via Skype from her apartment in Homs, Syria.
Alice Walker talks about some of the poems in her book “Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth,” inspired by the events of September 11th.
Poet Anna Rabinowitz found a shoe box full of old letters and photos of family and friends killed in the Holocaust. She wrote the poem "Darkling" to feature their voices. We also hear excerpts from the opera "Darkling."
"Night in Blue" a poem by Iraq war veteran Brian Turner. He served as an infantry team leader with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Unit in Iraq. His book of poetry about the war is called, “Here, Bullet.”
In his new book “Better Living Through Criticism,” A.O. Scott distills his decades-long career into a simple to read manifesto that not only explains the qualities of a good critic, but argues their fundamental importance to any culture.
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