How come many of the latest pop songs sound as if they could have been released decades ago? Music journalist Simon Reynolds tells Steve Paulson that our obsession with our immediate past could get in the way of future creativity.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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If there is one song more than any other that shimmers with political and emotional resonance, it’s “We Shall Overcome.”
Sherron Watkins is the whistle-blower who tried to tell Ken Lay what was going on at Enron. With co-author, journalist Mimi Schwartz, Watkins lays out the story in her book “Power Failure.”
Sherman Alexie is a one-man culture industry. He's also pretty much a rock star guest. Steve Paulson and Veronica Rueckert look back on his first interview with TTBOOK.
Piers Vitebsky is an anthropologist who studies the Eveny or Reindeer People of Siberia. They depend on the reindeer for their survival. They keep herds of them for meat - but their connection goes even deeper. Vitebsky says that they also have personal, consecrated reindeer animal doubles, which they believe will die for them.
There are moral and ethical issues that come up around war photography. Writer David Shields charged the New York Times with glamorizing war in photographs. Shields analyzed 100’s of pictures published on the front page of the Times and last year he wrote a book accusing the paper of making war beautiful. Charles Monroe-Kane sat down to talk with him.
Thomas Chatterton Williams is a young writer who grew up listening to hip hop, but lost touch with the culture upon entering college.
There's a special mystique to the number pi -- songs have been written about it and there's a day named after it. Jordan Ellenberg explains why.
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