John Cage wrote some of the most controversial music of the 20th Century. Kenneth Silverman explores Cage's life in a groundbreaking biography called "Begin Again."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Journalist Peggy Orenstein tells Jim Fleming about the raw food movement. She explains why they think food should never be heated above 118 degrees.
Master gardener Michael Pollan talks about his youthful experiment with growing marijuana and explains how the war on drugs spurred growers into developing a stronger, hardier plant.
James McBride won the National Book Award for "The Good Lord Bird," his novel about the abolitionist John Brown. He explains why he doesn't like most fictional portraits of slavery and how he tried to tell a different story.
Poet Mary Rose O'Reilly talks with Anne Strainchamps about the archaeology of memory and reads some of her work.
Laura Miller talks with Steve Paulson about her long relationship with the Narnia books. She read them as a child and loved them.
Authors Pico Iyer and Jonathan Lethem talk with Steve Paulson about the enduring legacy of noir-writer Raymond Chandler.
Milwaukee computer programmer Mohan Embar describes competing for -- and winning -- the 2012 Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence. His chat bot, Chip Vivant, was the most "human computer" of the year. But it still couldn't pass the Turing Test.
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