Summer festivals are a huge part of the American music scene -- and of the music marketplace. Why do millions of people risk sunburn and dehydration when they could hear the same music better with earbuds? Music critic Maura Johnston unpacks the economics and the atavistic lure of the summer music festival.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Thebe Medupe is an astrophysicist who grew up under apartheid. He talks about the stories he grew up hearing from his village elders and the astronomical legends of the Dogun people in Mali.
Sherman Alexie wrote a novel in response to 9/11. He thinks the fanaticism of flying planes into buildings is the end game of tribalism and he wanted to teach his sons something else.
Steve Paulson loves the idea of personal library. For all the digital data out there, Paulson says there's nothing quite like a book. He tells producer Sara Nics about data, knowledge, and To the Best of Our Knowledge.
Looking for the EXTENDED conversation? Find it here.
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One of the most interesting stories of 2015 was the idea that is a formula for love—or, more specifically, a series of questions that might fascilitate falling in love. We spoke the author of this study, Arthur Aron, as well as Mandy Len Catron, a woman who used the questions on her partner.
Olivia Laing talks about her book, "The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking."
Physicist Ronald Mallet tells Anne Strainchamps why he thinks he can use light to bend the fabric of space and achieve time travel.
Nelson Algren wrote “A Walk on the Wild Side” and won the first National Book Award for “The Man with the Golden Arm,” but was too gritty for most critics
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