December 04, 2009
The new movie "Up in the Air" tells a story tailor-made for our recessionary times. George Clooney plays a corporate grim reaper, whose job it is to fly to various cities and fire people. Director Jason Reitman ("Juno") based it on the 2001 novel by Walter Kirn. Reitman and Kirn told Kurt that the project ended up having more resonance in the real world than either could have anticipated.
Every year the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress selects 25 recordings to be preserved for all-time. This year's picks include John Lee Hooker's breakthrough song "Boogie Chillen". Blues veteran Charlie Musselwhite and writer Peter Guralnick explain how Hooker's 1948 song left its mark on American music.
Produced by Ben Manilla and Devon Strolovitch.
>> Listen to all five stories in our series HERE.
The Sounds of American Culture, our series highlighting works in the National Recording Registry, receives production support from the Library of Congress.
Paul Bartlett was slogging through a PhD in animal behavior when he decided he would rather be painting. Bartlett finished his studies, left behind the zebra finches in his research lab, and now depicts razorbills, puffins, and other shore life in his native Scotland. Produced by Ari Daniel Shapiro.
Take a Mormon from Utah, teach him Japanese, send him to Australia, and what do you get? For David Boyle, enough material for two feature films about the Japanese culture set both in the U.S. and Japan. In November, Boyle's latest movie, "White on Rice," won the audience award at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Even though Japan looms large in his movies, he says it's always the story of his own family that he's telling. Produced by Lisa Katayama.
The Lacuna marks Barbara Kingsolver's first novel in nearly a decade. It's an epic tale that spans decades of vivid history from 1930s Mexico City to the McCarthy-era U.S. She peppers the narrative with real historical figures including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and J. Edgar Hoover. She tells Kurt, "The most important part of the story is the part you don't know yet."
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova turned their serendipitous meeting, love story, and music making in Dublin into the movie "Once." They even won an Oscar for their songwriting. No longer together romantically, they still collaborate musically and they stopped by Studio 360 to perform songs from their new album, Strict Joy.
The Swell Season performs the track from their album Strict Joy live in Studio 360.
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
