American Icons: Amazing Grace
This is America’s anthem for civil rights.There is exactly one old hymn that everyone recognizes, and moves people who have no feeling for the spiritual or religious. “Amazing Grace” transcended the...
View ArticleMike Sabath Made It
When the New Yorker editor Andrew Marantz met Mike Sabath on an airplane, the slick teen-ager, a native of affluent Westchester County, New York, was tinkering with a song on his laptop. At first,...
View ArticleA Hymn for Orlando
The hymn writer and Presbyterian minister Carolyn Gillette was taught in seminary to write sermons with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. She does the same when she composes her hymns,...
View ArticleThe Teacher’s Vet
Among the twentysomethings graduating this spring from Vassar College is a thirty-five-year-old Texan named David Carrell. As a tank commander in the Army, Carrell spent four of his eleven and a half...
View ArticleThe Great Textbook War
Trey Kay, producer, of the radio documentary “The Great Textbook War,” discusses the controversy that broke out in 1974 in Kanawha County, West Virginia, over newly adopted school textbooks. Supporters...
View ArticlePolitical Resonance
In the dark fall of 2001, images from Moby-Dick surfaced in the press, as a strange literary footnote to the most shocking event of the last half century. Producer Trey Kay speaks with Professors...
View ArticleAmerican Icons: Nirvana’s “Nevermind”
This is the last great invention of rock and roll.Nearly 25 years ago, a new sound blasted the cobwebs out of every radio station in America. It was angry and bracingly cynical; the album featured a...
View ArticleAmerican Icons: “Mad Magazine”
This is the magazine that made America snarky.In 1954, a US Senate subcommittee investigating juvenile delinquency called William Gaines, publisher of the successful EC Comics, to testify. “You think...
View ArticleAmerican Icons: Mad Magazine
This is the magazine that made America snarky.In 1954, a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating juvenile delinquency called William Gaines, publisher of the successful EC Comics, to testify. “You think...
View ArticleContemporary Christian Art
Roman Catholicism inspired centuries of great Christian painting by artists such as Giotto and Michelangelo. But after the Reformation, many Protestants were content to let the visual tradition wither....
View ArticleAmerican Icons: Nirvana's Nevermind
This is the last great invention of rock and roll.In April, the band Nirvana is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — it’s been 25 years since the release of their first album, a gnarly...
View ArticleAmerican Icons: Dixie
This is the tune the nation brought to war. It’s been a century-and-a-half since a minstrel tune called “Dixie” debuted in New York. The song went viral, and soon North and South alike were whistling...
View ArticleEco Art
Photographer Brandon Ballengée hunts for frogs with extra legs and missing eyes. Andrea Polli translates hurricane data into soundscapes. By seeking out these (sometimes bizarre) ecological phenomena,...
View ArticleAmerican Icons: Nirvana's Nevermind
This is the last great invention of rock and roll.Twenty years ago this month, a new sound blasted the cobwebs out of every radio station in America. It was angry and bracingly cynical; the album...
View ArticleEco Art
Photographer Brandon Ballengée spends his days hunting for frogs with extra legs and missing eyes. He's an eco artist, and by seeking out these mutant anomalies, he hopes to bring environmentalism to...
View ArticleAmerican Icons: Dixie
This is the tune the nation brought to war. It’s been a century-and-a-half since a minstrel tune called “Dixie” debuted in New York. The song went viral, and soon North and South alike were whistling...
View ArticleThe Great Textbook War
In 1974, during the most turbulent schoolbook boycott in U.S. history, schools were bombed and buses hit with sniper fire in Kanawha County, West Virginia because local community members objected to...
View ArticleEco Art
Photographer Brandon Ballengée hunts for frogs with extra legs and missing eyes. Andrea Polli translates hurricane data into soundscapes. By seeking out these (sometimes bizarre) ecological phenomena,...
View ArticleAlexis Rockman
Alexis Rockman wants his paintings to help people visualize big scientific phenomena like genetic engineering and global warming. But Rockman, who has an exhibition at The Rose Art Museum through July...
View ArticleEco Art
Photographer Brandon Ballengée hunts for frogs with extra legs and missing eyes. Andrea Polli translates hurricane data into soundscapes. By seeking out these (sometimes bizarre) ecological phenomena,...
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