Studio 360 With Kurt Andersen

Our recent live show was recorded in New York on a glorious spring day on the High Line, the elevated park. It begins with Kurt Andersen welcoming to the stage Friends Who Folk, the music comedic duo of Rachel Wenitsky and Ned Risely, who perform and discuss how they’re truly devotees to the folk tradition, even though their songs are satirical. Next to join Kurt is former “Daily Show” correspondent Aasif Mandvi, who performs a stand-up set before talking with Kurt about his career as both a serious and comic actor. Finally, Yo La Tengo performs and members Georgia Hubley, Ira Kaplan and James McNew reflect on the band’s 35 years together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Julio Torres and Ana Fabrega — two of the co-creators, writers, producers and stars of the new HBO series “LosEspookys.” Gauging how films have shaped — and skewed — our understanding of the Stonewall uprising, with Mark Segal, who participated in the riots, and Jude Dry, a film and television critic at IndieWire. And the phenomenon of “multiple discovery,” when artists come up with the same idea independently, but tend to suspect their idea was stolen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1971 Richard Roundtree stepped out of a subway entrance to the Oscar-winning sounds of Isaac Hayes, and changed American movie-making. The box-office success of Shaft, about a fiercely independent, courageous, and sexy private eye, led to an explosion of black action B-movies, and crystalized a version of black macho cool that hadn’t been shown on the big screen before. And it was all put together by one of the most important American photographers of the mid-20th century, Gordon Parks. The story of Shaft is told by those that made the movie, and those they inspired. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner talks with Kurt Andersen about her first novel, “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” a book about divorce that has both humor and bite. John Cameron Mitchell was behind the punk musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” and his latest project is “Anthem: Homunculus,” a podcast musical. Mitchell and composer Bryan Weller perform music from the podcast in our studio. And our latest installment of Day Jobs features Steve Von Till, the guitarist in the post-metal band Neurosis, who also has a decidedly more subdued career — as an elementary school teacher.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Los Angeles-based musician Nick Waterhouse weaves together classic rhythm and blues, jazz, and soul, lending his songs a ‘50s and ‘60s inspired sound. Waterhouse stopped by Studio 360 to tell Kurt Andersen about his self-titled fourth album. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Singer-songwriter Regina Spektor talks with Kurt Andersen about her upcoming Broadway residency and, seated at a Steinway, performs some songs. The story behind the Empire Zinc strike 70 years ago and the film it inspired, “Salt of the Earth.” And how one scene from “Finding Nemo” inspired Kiki Kienstra to up and move to Mexico. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To commemorate Deadwood and its long-awaited conclusion, Kurt Andersen revisits his 2006 conversation with the show’s creator, David Milch. They discuss the show’s reprobate cast of characters and their florid, profane dialogue. “I did a lot of research,” Milch says. “Everyone without exception said that in the mining camps, the language was of an unrelieved coarseness and obscenity.“ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1987 Elaine May’s comedy “Ishtar” was savaged by critics and flopped spectacularly, but it turns out that the movie is actually pretty funny — and the reason it failed is pretty complicated. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, the stars of “Booksmart,” tell Kurt Andersen about how they became friends after they were cast as friends — and they bring a playlist of some of their favorite on-screen friendships. The final episode of the original “Star Trek” series aired 50 years ago this week, and Ronald D. Moore reveals how watching reruns of the show made him a science-fiction fan and ultimately led to becoming staff writer for “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and, in a movie for the franchise, to killing off his hero, James T. Kirk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A half century later, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is still shaping our future. With no help from CGI, the movie predicted private space travel, artificial intelligence and much of Apple’s product line. It showed the promise and perils of technology and explored life’s biggest mystery: Are we alone in the universe? In Part Two of our look at the movie in our American Icons series, we visit the same IBM research lab that helped inspire HAL. We meet CIMON, a real-life AI robot on the International Space Station and Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut who blasted the “Blue Danube” in the space shuttle. Plus we speak to New York Times critic Wesley Morris, filmmakers Christopher Nolan and Tom Hanks, artist James Turrell and U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Booksmart is a new movie directed by Olivia Wilde, about two smart young women, Molly and Amy, who are best friends finishing at the top of their class because they spent high school doing homework and volunteering instead of partying so they could get into good colleges. Only to realize that their hard-partying classmates also got into those same good schools. Queue the wild, wacky, booze-fueled odyssey to get to the mega-party. But the depiction of the two girls and their friendship is not generic, but specific, and fresh, and believable. The stars, Beanie Feldstein (Lady Bird) and Kaitlyn Dever (Justified), talk with Kurt Andersen about stereotypes, role models, and how they decided to become roommates before shooting the film and actually became friends before portraying them.  They also share their favorite on-screen friendships that inspired the enchanting bond between their characters.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Theater magic, starting with “Tootsie” composer David Yazbek and musical theater obsessive John McWhorter on the art and wonder of tongue-twisting patter songs. Kurt Andersen talks with performance artist Taylor Mac on writing the new Broadway play, "Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus." And the odd mixture of religious fervor, class concerns and gender politics that made performing Shakespeare outdoors so popular in the United States.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This Woman’s Work is a series of stories from Classic Album Sundays and Studio 360, highlighting classic albums by female artists that have made a lasting impact on music and pop culture. This time, we focus on Lady Sings the Blues by legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday. It was released in 1956 to coincide with her autobiography of the same name. By this point in her career, when she was just in her early 40s, Holiday’s voice had taken on a fragile and worn quality. Hardship, abusive relationships, and addiction had taken their toll on her famous instrument.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with filmmaker Werner Herzog about his latest documentary, "Meeting Gorbachev," his unusual approach to narrating documentaries and their mutual obsession with cat videos. One of the busiest directors of TV comedy, Beth McCarthy-Miller, tells Kurt how she has gone about directing “SNL,” sitcoms and that notorious Super Bowl halftime show that popularized the term “wardrobe malfunction.” And 35 years ago, Prince went from a popular musician to a phenomenon, with the release of “When Doves Cry,” and the movie he wrote it for, “Purple Rain.” Two members of Prince’s band, Wendy Melvoin and Matt “Doctor” Fink, as well as music journalist and author Alan Light, tell the story of that remarkable song. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Anthem: Homunculus, John Cameron Mitchell and composer Bryan Weller have taken the podcast musical to new heights. They join Kurt to discuss the shows origins, and perform a song live in our studio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A half century later, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is still shaping our future. With no help from CGI, the movie predicted private space travel, artificial intelligence and half of Apple’s product line. It showed the promise and perils of technology and explored life’s biggest mystery: Are we alone in the universe? In Part One, we look at the movie’s origins in 1960s New York and how it went from opening night bomb to counterculture icon. We’ll hear from effects wizard Doug Trumbull, actor Keir Dullea and superfan Tom Hanks, who has seen the movie more than 200 times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with novelist Karl Ove Knausgård about his nonfiction book about Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Ani DiFranco’s new memoir chronicles the ups and downs of being a feminist folk hero. Pete Seeger would have been 100 this week, and Kurt revisits a lovely afternoon he spent with the singer in the home he built himself along the river. And a site-specific art project, “Romantic Songs of the Patriarchy,” exposes misogyny in popular music in a grueling yet entertaining way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ali Smith’s 2016 book Autumn was heralded as the first great post-Brexit novel. Kurt talks with her about politics, art, and the very nature of time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Susan Choi, whose engrossing new novel about on- and offstage drama at a performance arts high school is called “Trust Exercise.” How Edward Doyle-Gillespie ended up writing poetry about being a Baltimore cop. And This Woman’s Work, our new series in collaboration with Classic Album Sundays that highlights classic albums by female artists, kicks off with Patti Smith’s groundbreaking first album, “Horses.”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with playwright Suzan-Lori Parks about “White Noise,” along with one of the play’s stars, Daveed Diggs from the original cast of “Hamilton.” Iggy Berlin explains what he does as an extra for operas and ballets, where they’re called supernumeraries. And the rich history of the song “In the Pines,” which many luminaries sang in their signature style, from Kurt Cobain to Lead Belly to Bill Monroe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month marks the birth centennial of American dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham. His defiant work transformed contemporary arts beyond dance. Cunningham talks about movement and technology, and dancers Daniel Roberts and Bill T. Jones tell us about his influence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices