PRI's Studio 360

Studio 360 takes some risks. Philippe Petit remembers his infamous highwire walk between the World Trade Center towers. DJ Shadow lectures on the occupational hazards of finding precious vinyl in record-store basements. And Bill Murray reads a poem – don’t worry, not his own. Plus, Kehinde Wiley paints hip-hop legends in the style of the Renaissance masters, and Miranda July reads a story from her recent collection.

Multiple personalities. In a program recorded live at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Tony Award-winning performer Sarah Jones transforms herself into a dizzying range of characters – from a Jewish grandmother to a teenaged rapper. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, who developed the theory of multiple intelligences, gives some free analysis to audience members. And country rocker Steve Earle sings about leaving Tennessee, performing tracks from his new record Washington Square Serenade.

Kurt Andersen explores the history of Superman and why "The Man of Steel" remains as popular and elusive as ever.

Filmmaker Kimberly Peirce talks about taking inspiration from soldiers’ videos, shot in Iraq and posted to YouTube. Her movie “Stop-Loss” is just out on DVD. We’ll also hear about the legendary scientific lab in New Jersey that invented nearly everything. Plus, soul singer Solomon Burke masters country music.

Studio 360 falls for summer blockbusters. Meet the genius behind sound effects in the new Pixar film "Wall-E." A victim of "viral marketing" explains how he got psyched for next month’s Batman movie. And take a boat ride with an international art star, Olafur Eliasson, as he inspects his enormous art project in New York Harbor: four man-made waterfalls, ten stories high.

Fashion guru Simon Doonan, author of Eccentric Glamour, schools Kurt in style. Writer Isabel Fonseca explains how she tackled the thorny world of marital infidelity in her new novel Attachment. And producer extraordinaire T-Bone Burnett shares dark and moody songs from his new record Tooth of Crime.

We've got your front yard and we're not giving it back. An artist transforms America's lawns, one vegetable garden at a time. What can America's suburbs learn from the shantytowns of Tijuana? Architect Teddy Cruz has an answer. And Diane Keaton obsesses over an obscure photographer. Plus, we’ll hear about two Tony-nominated musicals shaking up Broadway: "Sunday in the Park with George" and "Passing Strange."

Studio 360 goes Hollywood. In June 2007, in front of a live audience at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, Kurt talked to the city’s creative movers and shakers. East L.A. fusion rockers Quetzal show how they’re pushing the boundaries of Chicano music to a new level of cool. Jon Robin Baitz (creator of ABC’s "Brothers and Sisters") explains why it’s good to be a playwright writing for TV. Plus, insightful commentary from Svetlana, LA's most highly cultured escort (as performed by actress and playwright Iris Bahr).

Kurt talks with brash and cantankerous writer Harlan Ellison, the author of over 1,700 stories of speculative fiction. Then it’s Omaha or bust: Kurt finds that his Great Plains hometown has a vibrant indie rock, film, and visual arts scene. Plus a tribute to Aimee Mann, whose new record is @#%&*! Smilers.

Smashing atoms and colliding worlds. We try to wrap our brains around the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, which revs up this summer. Writer Lydia Millet imagines a quantum accident at the Collider in a story, read by Martha Plimpton. On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, two worlds collide violently in Richard Price’s novel Lush Life. And, in time for the unofficial start of summer, the eerie and intense beach scenes of Richard Misrach.

Creativity against all odds. A stroke survivor dictates his memoir by blinking his left eye, a story told in the film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." We’ll explore an Emily Dickinson poem written from beyond the grave in our American Icons series. And Jack Handey takes on our extraterrestrial enemies, in a story called "What I'd Say to the Martians."

Body spray confidential. Kurt Andersen hits the drugstore with a physicist and a perfume critic, and finds out why personal products smell the way they do. And writer Pico Iyer talks about his unique friendship with the Dalai Lama. Plus, satirist Jack Handey has a spooky legend to tell.

Kurt looks into the tricky relationship between money and the big-time art world. And we’ll hear how folk music keeps on ticking. A folk music collector explains his scramble to save America’s traditional sounds one field recording at a time. A 92-year-old blues legend, Honeyboy Edwards, remembers his lean days as a boxcar hobo. And outspoken English folk rocker Billy Bragg, who has a new record out, stops by to perform.

The aftershocks of Abu Ghraib. In “Standard Operating Procedure,” filmmaker Errol Morris tells the story of the soldiers who posed and photographed abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. In a strange twist of timing, U.S. military prisons are the subject of another movie being released this weekend; this one, however, is a comedy. “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” details the misadventures of two White Castle-loving potheads who find themselves the subjects of racial profiling.

Studio 360 saves the planet. Kurt Andersen asks a priest about the Vatican’s declaration that pollution is a modern sin. Then we explore design solutions for a changing environment. Kurt visits a solar-powered subway station in Coney Island and talks to an engineer making biofuel from bacteria. Plus, the creative thinkers behind a hand-cranked street generator, the adobe house of the future, carbon-neutral rock shows, and the Eco Art movement.

Studio 360 samples girl culture. Student filmmakers weigh in on the women they see on screen and the “American Girl” empire embraces a period of ancient history: The 1970s. A translator in Istanbul brings Judy Blume to young Turkish readers, and body issues become an obsession for a young storyteller. Plus, a tattoo parlor pops up at a fancy art fair and we follow Ethiopia’s musical ambassador from Addis Ababa to Boston.

Studio 360 dives into music’s deep end. Kurt talks with Del tha Funkee Homosapien, who’s made huge hits but has also carved out a niche as hip-hop’s oddball. Simone Dinnerstein performs a few "Goldberg Variations," and Swedes plot their government-backed global takeover of indie rock. Plus, photographer Taryn Simon with tips on gaining access to forbidden zones.

Kurt Andersen asks what art reveals about autism. Researcher Blythe Corbett guides Kurt through some of the controversial questions surrounding the disorder. A man with autism writes a dark satire about the world of special education. Scientists try to understand the perceptions of autistic people by watching movies with them – and following their eye movements with a laser. And a playwright presents an extreme hypothesis: in our technological, disconnected world, is autism an evolutionary adaptation?

Making sense of the Iraq War on film, in rock music, and on-stage. The director Kimberley Peirce tells a hidden war story in "Stop-Loss." The band Black 47 writes songs for a surprising fan base: combat soldiers. George Packer transforms his article on Iraqi translators into a stage play. Plus, songs and stories from Stew, the creator of "Passing Strange," the new rock musical that's revolutionizing Broadway.

Studio 360 considers the strange force of cuteness, and our biological urge to say, “awww!” or sometimes “ugggh” when we encounter the cute. And in Japan, anxieties about the atomic bomb may be masked in cuteness. Plus, a live set of smart indie pop from the band “Stars.”

Studio 360 gets tough. Kurt Andersen asks author John Silber, about architecture he considers absurd. S. Epatha Merkerson tells us how she plays the no nonsense "Law and Order" character, Lt. Anita van Buren. And when 360 leaves the office early to make a movie, Kurt does his own stunts.

How artists help us to make sense of war. As the 5th anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaches, Kurt Andersen revisits his conversation with the late writer Susan Sontag. Recorded a month before the war in Iraq began and only a year before her death, Sontag looks at how we interpret images of war, and tells us how she staged theater in the war zone. Also, novelists who escaped war find meaning in poetry, and two film critics look at how American filmmakers have fought and refought the Viet Nam war on-screen.

Youth isn't wasted on the young. Ellen Page, the 21 year-old star of the hit movie "Juno," put in everything she had after landing her dream role as a smart, savvy, pregnant teen. And 23-year-old indie-rocker Thao Nguyen tells us how spending her teen years working at her mom’s laundromat honed her guitar skills. All that plus the amazing gospel sounds of the Blind Boys of Alabama.

Studio 360 takes a chance on love and fashion. Fiona Chutney sashays through New York’s Fashion Week seeking outfit advice for Valentine’s Day. We reveal the winner of our contest for a custom-made love song created by indie popster Corey Dargel. Plus, love songs from India that will break your heart, even if you don’t speak Urdu.

Kurt Andersen explores how the Lincoln Memorial became America's soapbox, and how our yearning to connect with Lincoln speaks to the better angels of our nature.

Studio 360 is ripped from the headlines. High drama hits the campaign trail, and we reveal the private lives of striking writers. When federal agents raid California art collections, museum directors around the country start shaking in their boots. Plus, we remember Andy Palacio, a rising pop star and cultural ambassador from Belize.

The astounding mad scientist life of Nikola Tesla. Just who was this pioneer of radio, radar, and wireless communication? We discover his legacy in the work of today’s scientists and artists. Samantha Hunt’s new novel The Invention of Everything Else is a fictional portrait of Tesla. Monologist Mike Daisey tells us how Tesla X-rayed Mark Twain’s head. And across the country, garage inventors toil in obscurity at the next breakthrough that will change the world.

Indispensable greatness in music, novels, and cake. Kurt talks with jazz legend Herbie Hancock and novelist Ian McEwan. Hancock is up for album of the year at the Grammy’s, and the cinematic adaptation of McEwan’s novel Atonement just won the Golden Globe for Best Picture. We discover the strange tormented stateside life of Viennese composer Gustav Mahler. And a baker praises the one appliance she could never do without: the KitchenAid mixer.

Pride of place. Baltimore locals guide us through the gritty neighborhoods of HBO’s "The Wire." NBC’s "The Office" brings street cred to Scranton, Pennsylvania. In the high plains of Argentina, a town’s identity is forever linked to the 1962 Hollywood epic "Taras Bulba." And location is everything for the photographer David Plowden; he looks back on a career shooting rural landscapes, small towns, and ferocious locomotives.

Studio 360 sells it to you wholesale. Kurt Andersen and his guest, legendary adman George Lois, talk about the fertile and contentious relationship between art and advertising. We’ll hear from James Rosenquist, the Pop artist best known for his billboard-sized montages of consumer goods. And we’ll find out why advertising jingles were so manipulative and successful for so long. Plus, how high-end consumer catalogs are stealing the aesthetics of old Dutch still lifes.