Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

To celebrate National Poetry Month, we’re featuring some of our favorite American practitioners. Tracy K. Smith shares some of her surprising sources of poetic inspiration: David Bowie and the Hubble Space Telescope. And she chooses the winners to our listener poetry competition. Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” gets the American Icons treatment. And Kurt Andersen talks to award-winning poet and “Sexiest Man Alive” Terrance Hayes about his 2015 book, “How to Be Drawn.” 

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You might not have heard of Nell Scovell, but you’ve definitely seen her work: she’s written for The Simpsons, Late Night with David Letterman, Murphy Brown and co-wrote the 2013 blockbuster book Lean In with Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

Her new memoir, Just the Funny Parts, reveals what it was like to break into the male-dominated TV industry. Nell talks to Kurt Andersen about crafting a classic episode of The Simpsons, writing jokes for Barack Obama and reminisces about her first gig: writing for the magazine Kurt co-founded, Spy.

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Kurt Andersen talks with performer and artist Laurie Anderson about her long career and her new book, “All the Things I Lost in the Flood,” and new album, “Landfall.” Jess Thom used to be kind of in denial about having Tourette syndrome, but then she decided to turn her tics into inspiration for artists. And an oral history of the the Belly Room, which the Comedy Store opened in the 1970s so female comics like Sandra Bernhard could have a room of their own.

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A show about how sounds from household items and nature get turned into something else. First Kurt Andersen talks with Ben Burtt, the legendary sound designer who came up with the iconic noises in “Star Wars,” “WALL-E” and more. Then Kurt gets a lesson on the theremin from a master of this out-there instrument, Pamelia Stickney. Many people find the cacophony that comes from old steam radiators to be aggravating, but the writer Henry Alford hears music in his, and sets to work to make a symphony from the clanks and hisses. And then it all goes to the birds: Artist Nina Katchadourian replaced her car alarms with recordings of bird calls … and Ben Birin fuses birdsong with beatboxing.

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In 1978, there were more female comedians in LA than ever before, and many of them were performing at the Comedy Store. But that didn’t mean they were treated fairly, or even given much of a chance to perform.

The Comedy Store’s owner, Mitzi Shore, tried to rectify that with an experiment — a room dedicated only to female performers. It was a move that was warmly welcomed by some comedians, and treated with a lot of skepticism by others. It was a great place to develop a unique style that might not have played with mainstream audiences, because audiences rarely showed up. Here’s the story of the ups and downs of the Belly Room.

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Just as art collector Peggy Cooper Cafritz was about to publish a book about the work of black artists she has championed, she died suddenly, and Kurt hears from some people who will miss her the most. Writer Richard Klin admits his love for one of the more schmaltzy ballads of the ’70s, “Babe” by Styx. Kevin Hall has a rare psychological condition known as the “Truman Show” disorder where he has delusions that he’s starring in a reality show, and he joins Kurt along with journalist Mary Pilon, who just wrote a book about him. And finally, Joe Weisberg, co-creator of “The Americans,” and his brother Jacob Weisberg, host of “Trumpcast,” join Kurt to talk about how both of their projects were jolted by the Trump-Russia imbroglio.

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Some of our favorite artists who hit their stride when the blush of youth was long gone. Hilton Als talks with Toni Morrison, who didn’t write her first novel until she was 39. David Chase was a writer and producer for television for decades, most famously as the creator of “The Sopranos,” but he didn’t fulfill his real ambition, to be a filmmaker, until he was in his 60s. Today Philip Glass is one of the best known living composers, but he tells Kurt Andersen how, until he was nearly 40, he was driving a cab to make ends meet. And a listener, Maureen Sestito, reveals how a novel inspired her to begin med school — when she was already in her 30s.

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In 2013, novelist and former CIA officer Joe Weisberg created the FX TV series The Americans. It’s about a pair of Russian spies living as Americans in Washington D.C. Three years later, Joe Weisberg’s older brother, Slate’s editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg, created the podcast Trumpcast.

At first, it seemed like the creative pursuits of the Weisberg brothers had little to do with each other... until intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Kurt Andersen talks with Joe and Jacob Weisberg about the genesis of their shows and the unexpected ways they overlap.”Were Donald Trump not been such an important character today,” Joe Weisberg says, “we might have actually had the idea of putting him in [The Americans].”

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Kurt Anderson talks with Doug Jones, the go-to guy to play creatures and monsters in Hollywood, about his performance in “The Shape of Water.” When it comes to political acceptance speeches at the Academy Awards, it’s a fine line between awe-inspiring and awe-ful, so we check in with some pros, including Barack Obama’s speechwriter, about how to nail them. Why Aisha Harris thinks the Oscars should add a new category: Ensemble Cast. And finally, Kurt Andersen makes a case for narrowing the Best Picture category, because he thinks some of this year’s nominees are overrated.

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Kurt Andersen looks into how the Lincoln Memorial became an American Icon. Sarah Vowell discusses the battle over Lincoln's memory, which lasted for three generations. Dorothy Height, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, recalls witnessing Marian Anderson's historic concert there in 1939, and hearing Martin Luther King Jr. declare "I have a dream" in 1963. And a former White House aide sets the record straight on Richard Nixon's infamous 4 a.m. trip to the Lincoln Memorial, where he met with student protesters there to denounce the Vietnam War.

Actor David Strathairn reads the Gettysburg Address, which is engraved on the Memorial, for Studio 360.

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