Terry Gross

Jeffrey Gettleman of the N.Y. Times says the air has been filled with smoke from crematories. Meanwhile, the health care system is collapsing and the black market for oxygen and medicine is thriving.

For her second solo album, Kennedy's array of diverse songs — from thumping electronica to full-throated crooning — shows us she won't be pinned down

A writer offers up her guest house to a famous painter in hope that something transcendent will happen. But he's selfish, amoral and flagrantly misogynistic — and monstrously at ease with all this.