The Notorious Bettie Page explores the life of the 1950s pin-up queen, who posed for under-the-counter men’s fetish magazines, and for photos and films for private collectors into the bondage scene.
Rev. William Sloane Coffin, who died Wednesday at the age of 81 of congestive heart failure, was known as a civil rights activist and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War.
Bettie Page was considered the "pin-up queen" from 1950 to 1957, based on photographs of her in the men's magazines Wink, Beauty Parade and Titter. Director Mary Harron discusses her new film about Page, The Notorious Bettie Page.
Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker discusses on the latest developments between Iran and the United States regarding Iran's nuclear power program. Hersh writes that the Bush administration has clandestine plans for a possible major attack on Iran.
The musical band What I Like About Jew started out as a tongue-in-cheek cabaret act that sold out at New York venues such as The Knitting Factory and Fez. Now, the two-man act has a new CD, Unorthodox.
Journalist Michael Pollan's new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, follows industrial food, organic food, and food that consumers procure or hunt for themselves, from the source to the dinner plate.
New York Times business writer Louis Uchitelle argues for corporations to move towards preserving jobs. His new book, The Disposable American, is also a history of the rise of layoffs in the United States.
Author Stephen McCauley first made a splash with The Object of My Affection, the novel that was later made into a movie starring Jennifer Aniston. His new novel, Alternatives to Sex, concerns a a gay fortysomething realtor with an addiction to cruising the Internet in pursuit of casual sex.
Film critic David Edelstein reviews Friends with Money, the new film by writer/director Nicole Holofcener who wrote and directed Lovely & Amazing and Walking and Talking.
Jackie McLean, the legendary jazz saxophonist who died last week at age 74, began playing at the age of 15 in his native New York City. Schooled in bebop at the start of his career, the alto sax player names Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Charlie Parker as influences. We offer a rebroadcast of a conversation with McLean.
At a time when hip-hop dominates the R&B scene, it's often easier for a rapper to achieve commercial success than a singer. Our music critic examines why that is, in his review of two new albums by R&B vocalists: Ghetto Classics by Jaheim and On the Jungle Floor by Van Hunt.
After seven years on TV, NBC's White House drama The West Wing comes to an end next month. Our television critic says he doesn’t want to wait until then to discuss the show, because lately it’s simply been too good to ignore.
In his new memoir, writer Ken Foster talks about his experience in recovering and sheltering lost animals. His book is called The Dogs Who Found Me: What I've Learned from Pets who were Left Behind. Foster also contributed to and edited the collection Dog Culture: Writers on the Character of Canines.
Stephen Kinzer has reported from more than 50 countries for The New York Times and has been the paper's bureau chief in Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua. In his new book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq, he writes that in the past 110 years, America has overthrown 14 governments that displeased them for "ideological, political, and economic" reasons.
Come up with a list of the dream writing jobs in comedy and at least three of them are likely to come up on one man's resume: Ben Karlin is executive producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and co-executive producer of The Colbert Report, both on the cable channel Comedy Central. Before that, Karlin was editor of the satirical weekly newspaper The Onion.
Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, And the Making of a Nation by Jon Meacham. His previous book, Franklin and Winston, was about the friendship between FDR and Churchill.
Lead singer and songwriter for The Kinks, Ray Davies started The Kinks in 1964 with his brother, Dave. They are said to be the pioneers of the rowdy garage band genre of rock music. Davies is now 61 and on tour for his first solo album, Other Peoples Lives.
Rock Historian Ed Ward on the history of African-American musicians in Nashville. He plays music from Night Train to Nashville a double CD put out by the Country Music Hall of Fame (in conjunction with a Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Show).
