Jocelyn Gonzales

Albania's national folk-singing treasure adjusts to a new life in America. Produced by Eric Copage and Jocelyn Gonzales.

The Iranian-born filmmaker who now lives in the U.S. describes her art as a bridge between two worlds. Produced by Kerrie Hillman.

Twenty-four years after arriving in the U.S., a young Vietnamese-American poet returned to Saigon with his father. Quang Bao reflects on how the visit forced him to redefine his notion of home. Produced by Jocelyn Gonzales.

George Beylerian is a former furniture designer who now heads Material Connexion, a resource center for designers and architects. Beylarian brings us through his house-ful of dissonant objects — and shows how they can all work together. Produced by Jocelyn Gonzales.

The best heroes and villains are often reflections of each other. Think of Sherlock Holmes versus Professor Moriarty or even Luke versus Darth in Star Wars. There's something of each in the other. This theme has been playing out for years in the martial arts and gangster films of ...

In theater, the stage and its proscenium are the obvious frame and container of the action. But often the sound and the lighting begin their work even the before play begins. Director Lawrence Axsmith talks about how a "pre-set" draws an audience into the world of a play. Produced by ...

MoMA design curator Paola Antonelli has these thoughts on an elegant little machine that helps us hold it all together — the zipper. Produced by Jocelyn Gonzales.

Most of the robots you know from the movies are male. There’s Robbie the Robot, C-3PO, Data the sensitive android on Star Trek, and the violent cyborgs of Terminator and Robocop. But what about the female robots? Writer Susie Bright has some thoughts on the ways they’ve been ...

George Beylerian is a former furniture designer who now heads Material Connexion, a resource center for designers and architects. Beylarian brings us through his houseful of dissonant objects — and shows how they can all work together.

In 1979, members of the New York Buddhist Association got together to learn how to play taiko drums, the ceremonial and martial instruments of ancient Japan. They named themselves Soh Daiko and quickly discovered that playing these drums meant more than rehearsing in the garage on ...

In theater, the stage and its proscenium are the obvious frame and container of the action. But often the sound and the lighting begin their work even the before play begins. Director Lawrence Axsmith talks about how a "pre-set" draws an audience into the world of a play.

Designer Ken Carbone has a soft spot for a very simple tool — the ink pen.

The typical Irish wake is a celebration of the way a person joked and ate and drank and lived. A pair of Irish-American singers, Austin Hughes and his father, Austin, Sr., talk about this non-mournful memorial. And they sing Finnegan's Wake — a traditional tune that came long before the ...

In New York a deejay forms a community around "bhangra" music — traditional Punjabi folk music with western hip-hop beats.

Last weekend the International Spy Museum opened in Washington, DC. The museum displays real spy stuff from real spies, and some not-so-real spy stuff from the movies.

In 1973 a TV show called Flipside lasted for just one season on CBS and then slipped into obscurity. Andrew Marks's father produced Flipside, and Roseanne Shelnut was its associate producer. They talk about why they want this forgotten program rediscovered. 

Kurt Andersen surveys the rich supply of alien characters in the movies.

(Originally aired: January 10, 2002)

Machine designer Chalo Colina explains how his true inspiration came from a gift he got when he was a teenager: a bicycle.

Kurt Andersen’s daughters weigh-in on their radio host dad.