Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Each week, nearly 5 million people listen to the show's intimate conversations broadcast on more than 624 NPR stations across the country, as well as in Europe on the World Radio Network. In 2015, Fresh Air was the No. 1 most downloaded podcast on iTunes.
Though Fresh Air has been categorized as a "talk show," it hardly fits the mold. Its 1994 Peabody Award citation credits Fresh Air with "probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insights." And a variety of top publications count Gross among the country's leading interviewers. The show gives interviews as much time as needed, and complements them with comments from well-known critics and commentators.
Fresh Air is produced at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and broadcast nationally by NPR.
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Actor Clive Owen co-stars with Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster in the new Spike Lee film Inside Man. His previous films include Closer, Sin City, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead and Croupier. (This interview was originally broadcast July 12, 2004.)
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Mary Gordon's book Pearl is about a mother struggling to understand her daughter's public act of martyrdom. It's now out in paperback. Gordon is the author of seven novels, including Final Payments and The Company of Women and four nonfiction works (including The Shadow Man. (This interview was originally broadcast Jan. 31, 2005.)
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Sharon Stone returns as a gorgeous novelist (and apparent psychopath) in a sequel to her 1992 smash hit Basic Instinct. This time, she's matching wits and sexual techniques with British actor David Morrissey instead of Michael Douglas. David Edelstein has a review. -
American opera visionary Sarah Caldwell founded the Opera Company of Boston in 1958. The company's principal prima donna was Beverly Sills, and Placido Domingo was an unknown young tenor when he first sang with the company. Caldwell died on March 23 at the age of 82.
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You may know them as Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock. Or as Michael Diamond, Adam Yauch, and Adam Horovitz. Or simply, the Beastie Boys. For their new concert film, Awesome; I... Shot That!, they gave cameras to their fans in the crowd.
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In the age of the sampler, three innovative guitar players are taking their instruments to new heights: Richard Leo Johnson, Dominic Frasca, and Jonas Hellborg. Johnson taught himself 12-string guitar. Frasca has translated the music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. And Sweden's Hellborg leads his own trio.
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President Bush is an enigmatic leader who uses an insurgent approach in reshaping policy and politics. That idea is central to Rebel in Chief, the new book by political writer Fred Barnes. Barnes is the executive editor of conservative magazine The Weekly Standard.
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If a child's parents are of two races — particularly if the mother is a former Black Panther member and the father is white — growing up can be a unique experience. Writer Angela Nissel mines those experiences in her memoir, Mixed. Nissel is a writer and consulting producer for the NBC TV show Scrubs.
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You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker is the new CD by Willie Nelson. Cindy Walker died last week at the age of 87.
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Actor Seymour Cassel has roles in the new TV series Heist and the film Lonesome Jim. Cassel, who comes from a showbiz family, has been acting in film and TV since 1959. His mother worked in Burlesque, and Cassel grew up backstage, amid chorus girls and sequins.
