Literary critic William Gass talks with Steve Paulson about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and explicates a poem of Rilke’s about a bowl of roses.
Literary critic William Gass talks with Steve Paulson about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and explicates a poem of Rilke’s about a bowl of roses.
Tom Wolfe talks with Steve Paulson, and explains why he's so fascinated by the connection between sex and social status.
Everyone thinks The Arabian Nights is a collection of stories and folktales from the Middle East. In fact, some of the most famous were written by Europeans, who fell in love with the tradition and wanted more.
Legendary showman P.T. Barnum once owned a slave named Joice Heth. Barnum claimed she was 161 years old and a former nanny to George Washington. Benjamin Reiss tells the story in his book "The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum's America."
Zorba Paster tells Jim Fleming that many of the practices outlined in his book “The Longevity Code” grow out of his Buddhist practice and belief.
Stephen Thompson is an editor at The Onion newspaper, and editor of “The Onion A.V. Club: The Tenacity of the Cockroach.”
The firey debate over schooling has flared up again. The newest dialogue? Astra Taylor’s "Unschooling” essay in n+1, and Dana Goldstein’s response in Slate. In this NEW and UNCUT interview, Taylor and Goldstein join Steve Paulson for their first joint interview on schools.
A true story of 26 Mexican men who tried to cross the Sonoran desert into the US in 2001. Only 12 of them survived. The others are known today as the “Yuma 14.”