Depression can mean two things: a downturn in the economy and an illness of the psyche.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Marc Abrahams, founder of the Ig-Nobel Prizes, says who this years winners are and that the purpose of the awards is to make people laugh, and then think.
Novelist Larry Baker followed up “The Flamingo Rising” with a story called “Athens, America.” He marketed it himself, starting in the mid-West, where the book is set, and ended up selling it in grocery stores.
Historian Jonathan Rose tells Steve Paulson that some members of the British working class in Victorian England and the early 20th century read the classics and used them as a means of intellectual emancipation.
John Balaban performed alternative service in Vietnam during the war there. While helping children injured in the fighting, he grew to love the traditional sung poetry of rural Vietnam.
Michael Dirda tells Anne Strainchamps that modern readers of Beowulf owe a great deal to J.R.R. Tolkien.
Merian C. Cooper dreamed up the original "King Kong." Cooper was an Indiana Jones - type figure himself.
Leslie Marmon Silko writes and paints to help understanding of her native Laguna Pueblo tribe.
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