One of the many utopian groups that started during the late 19th century and early 20th century was the House of David—perhaps the first cult to become a pop culture sensation. Their compound in Benton Harbon, Michigan had an amusement park and a zoo; they had a baseball team that once played an exhibition game against Babe Ruth and the Yankees, and they had bands—highly regarded, touring bands. Here's Henry Sapoznik—the director of the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture here at the University of Wisconsin—on the mythology and music of the House of David.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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People who like baseball call it "the thinking person’s game," but for the first 100 years, baseball was governed by a surprisingly limited range of critical thinking. Decisions were made by insiders, the current and former players who spent a lifetime around the diamond, and did things mostly one way: the way they've always been done. But in the last 3 or 4 years, that storehouse of common knowledge—much of which was kept guarded in a true "old boy's club"—has been cracked wide open. Now the game isn't driven by intuition, it's driven by data. And the math nerds who rode the bench in Little League—if they played at all—are now telling pro ballplayers what to do. Journalist Travis Sawchik tells Steve Paulson the story.
Sara Nelson tells Anne Strainchamps what publishers can do to make a book a best-seller and why the actual number of copies sold is a state secret.
Composer Freddy Knop creates a soundscape to help illustrate Nathan Englander's experience of the muse descending.
Roberta Gregory writes and draws the comic strip featuring the mis-adventures of Midge McCracken, AKA "Bitchy Bitch."
Steve Almond tells Steve Paulson some of his favorite candy bars are the regional specialities, and remembers the pop rocks craze.
What turns you on?
Sure, there are the obvious answers: beauty, brains, braun. But human sexuality is a complicated business. Studying it is more complicated still. That was, until the internet came along.
William Irwin tells Steve Paulson how philosophical questions echo throughout popular culture with several examples from Seinfeld and The Simpsons.
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