Fresh Air music critic Ken Tucker reviews Trouble in Mind, the new album from country singer Hayes Carll. The 32-year-old Texan says his music is inspired by Beat poetry, Bob Dylan and singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt.
Al Gore made waves for his work raising awareness on climate-change issues. Another poisonous environment has captured his attention as well: a climate that threatens reasonable public discourse.
In his new collection, Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems, poet Cornelius Eady writes of his transition from urban renter to rural homeowner and the encroachment of middle age.
Author Charles Ardai is founder of Hard Case Crime, a publishing group that reprints classic crime fiction and publishes new pulp fiction in paperback editions. Ardai, who writes under the pen name Richard Aleas, has won the Edgar Award for mystery writing.
Fresh Air film critic David Edelstein reviews Iron Man, based on the Marvel comics hero. The film, directed by Jon Favreau, stars Robert Downey Jr. as a billionaire weapons inventor, alongside Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard.
Rock historian Ed Ward looks at Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer Chuck Berry and the career that made him a star. Berry's entire record output from the 1950s was recently released on a four-disc set from Hip-O-Select titled, Johnny B. Goode: His Complete '50s Chess Recordings.
Actor-musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won an Oscar for Best Original Song, "Falling Slowly," in the film, Once. The movie, about two musicians who write songs together and fall in love, is out now on DVD.
Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a martial arts instructor in the new David Mamet film, Redbelt. Before starring in movies, Ejiofor was a prominent stage actor in England. Since then, he's appeared in Dirty Pretty Things, Children of Men and American Gangster.
Singer-composer Nick Cave composed the soundtrack for last year's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; he also wrote the screenplay and the soundtrack for The Proposition. Now, Cave has released a new CD with his band the Bad Seeds: Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
In the Japanese anime series Death Note, high school student Light Yagami is in possession of a super-powered notebook that allows him to kill anyone, simply by writing down the victim's name. Critic-at-large John Powers offers a commentary.
Comic and actor Jerry Seinfeld's latest project is the animated film Bee Movie, which he wrote and starred in. Seinfeld is best known for his work on the self-titled NBC series, which ran for nine seasons, earning the actor a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award.
Fresh Air film critic David Edelstein reviews Standard Operating Procedure, a documentary from Errol Morris about the treatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention center in Iraq in 2003.
In his new book, Charles Barber argues that Americans are over-prescribed antidepressants. Biological psychiatry, says Barber, is no substitute for psychotherapy.
Oscar-winning actress stepped behind the camera to direct the new dramedy Then She Found Me. She helped adapt the script as well, from the novel by Elinor Lipman. And Hunt stars in the film alongside Bette Midler — who plays her birth mother.
Paul Polak, founder of the nonprofit International Development Enterprises, has spent 25 years working to eradicate poverty. In Out of Poverty, he says simple technologies and a willingness to listen are key — and that government subsidies can do more harm than good.
Brothers David and Anton Treuer are members of the Ojibwe nation from the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. Both professors, they work to preserve the Ojibwe language, one of the few Native American languages in active use.
Three years ago, journalist Steve Lopez met a homeless musician on skid row in Los Angeles. He soon learned that the man, Nathaniel Ayers, had once been a promising violinist, and that he had left the Juilliard School because of his struggle with mental illness. Ayers is the subject of Lopez's new book, The Soloist.
