Paul Koudounaris has spent the past decade traveling around the world, climbing into church crypts and bone chambers and taking photos at over 250 burial sites in 30 countries. He's discovered chapels decorared with skeletons and underground caves filled with skulls—among other things. In this interview, he tells us how he began his obsession with displays of death.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Young activist Roni Krouzman tells Anne Strainchamps what it was like to participate in the demonstrations in Seattle, and how today’s protests resemble street theater.
“Buzkashi Boys” was one of the film shorts nominated for an Oscar this year. This is a coming of age story set in Afghanistan’s national sport, Buzkashi. It's a game of horse polo played with a dead goat instead of a ball.
Standup, prat falls, punch lines. Performing comedy's one thing, writing it's another.
Ian Frazier has been writing comedy for the New Yorker for decades. Catch him talking about the rewards of writing humor, and telling jokes in Russian.
Tom Farley, older brother of comedian Chris Farley, is the co-author (with Tanner Colby) of "The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts." He tells Jim Fleming that the young Chris was always funny, but was funnier when he was sober.
As far as questions of neurology, perhaps no creature is more mysterious and amazing than the octopus. In this EXTENDED interview, science writer Sy Montgomery talks about what she discovered when she met Athena, an octopus at the New England Aquarium.
Maybe people 30,000 years ago weren't so different from us. That's one of Werner Herzog's takeaways from seeing the ancient paintings in Chauvet Cave. The renowned filmmaker describes his own experience of awe when he encountered this prehistoric art.
In her new novella, "Sleep Donation," Karen Russell mentions a documentary called "Is Sleep Going Extinct?" That got us wondering what this fictional documentary would sound like. Chances are it would NOT sound anything like this.
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